Manchester producer Andy Stott has been silent since 2014’s Faith In Strangers, but today he’s back with the announcement of his new album, Too Many Voices,
along with a video for lead single “Butterflies.” The track leans
toward the synthed-out, minimal grooves of Blood Orange and Kaytranada
with buoyant, intricate drum patterns for an alluring midnight pop trip.
The matching clip, directed by Michael England, features
dancer/producer Rafael “Hitmaker” Chinx Martin showcasing his fluid
movements in slow motion all over NYC. Unsuspecting New Yorkers get to
witness Martin doing his thing on subway platforms, inside subway cars,
on sculptures and statues, and sidewalks.
As Noveller, Austin post-rock composer Sarah Lipstate creates vast
landscapes of sound, the kind of music that drifts through the air and
fills in the space around you. So she makes a fascinating foil for the
jarringly visceral Iggy Pop, who she’ll be supporting on the imminent Post Pop Depression tour. One fine example of Lipstate’s powers is “Glacial Wave,” a six-minute slow-burn from Noveller’s recently reissued Glacial Glow. Today the song gets a video by Fractal Visuals that amplifies its feeling of neon-lit darkness. It’s a mythic tale
featuring three characters — The Creator, the Future, and the Protector —
and it looks as ominously pretty as the music sounds.
PUP have transcended to a new level with their upcoming sophomore album, The Dream Is Over, which is high praise from us considering we named them both a band to watch and best new band before their fantastic 2014 debut even came out. But with “DVP,”
the new record’s lead single that came out at the top of the year, it
was clear that the Toronto band were operating at a completely different
speed. They doubled down on the self-loathing and caustic passion that
marked their debut, and created one of the finest punk records we’ve
gotten in a long while.
“If This Tour Doesn’t Kill You, I Will” is the bitter, frustrated opening track to The Dream Is Over,
a scathing indictment of a band member based on resentments that
festered over time due to long periods together on the road in cramped
quarters. It’s a situation that anyone whose been in a band can relate
too far too much, and anyone who hasn’t can latch onto the pure,
unadulterated hatred that’s thrown at the subject of the song. It starts
off sourly uneasy — “I hate your guts and it makes me ill, seeing your
face every morning,” “Everything you do makes me wanna vomit” — before
coming through with the punch halfway in, building to a group
exclamation of “Why can’t we just get along?” whose only answer is more
volume. Stefan Babcock’s voice, despite the health concerns
that resulted in the record’s title, sounds as smooth and irate as
ever, and the rest of the band is in top form. Do yourself a favor and
play “Tour” and “DVP” back-to-back — the transition between the two is one of the most satisfying and exhilarating things I’ve heard all year.
The new song comes attached to an appropriately violent video directed by Jeremy Schaulin-Rioux — watch and listen via Noisey below.
LA-based harpist/singer-songwriter faux Margaux is gearing up to drop her debut EP, Blue.
She’s expanding on her decade of classical training, infusing it with
her penchant for pop for a meld all her own. The single “I Don’t Need You”
is exemplary of her aesthetic. Sparse harp flourishes are surrounded by
slow-churning, minimal digital percussion and spun together with her
feathery vocals for an alluring excursion. The hook has a haunting
midtempo energy with big, intricate drums coming in as Margaux asserts
her strength in moving on from a love she sorely misses. The matching
clip, directed by Margaux herself and Robert Ingraham, has quick cuts of
the singer-songwriter and a lover on the beach, but she is alone for
the majority of the video searching for solace in solitude. Gloomy,
gorgeous shots of her on a burning swing set and wandering on the beach
contrast with bright bursts of light as her silhouetted fingers pick her
harp. It’s a moving clip for a song about moving on.
British producer Gold Panda will release his fourth studio album, Good Luck And Do Your Best, later this year. Last month, he shared a video for lead single “Time Eater,”
and he’s following that up with another video for new song and second
single “In My Car.” It features his grandmother hanging out with the
producer in a variety of locales, and was directed by Rob Brandon.
Here’s what Panda said about the video in a statement:
I asked Rob to just come and film us (my gran and I)
being boring. But now, when I watch it back, it doesn’t seem mundane at
all. It seems actually really nice and sweet. I was thinking about all
this cool stuff we could do, slow-mo shots, what outfit I could wear,
maybe an explosion and who could be in my crew. But real life is
exciting enough; you just don’t see it when you’re in it.
Steve Gunn will release a new album this summer via Matador, which marks a fairly big leap for the singer-songwriter. Eyes On The Lines follows 2014’s Way Out Weather,
which Gunn put out on Paradise Of Bachelors, a small label that boasts
an impressive roster of transcendent folk musicians including the
Staves, Gun Outfit, and the Weather Station. “Conditions Wild” is Eyes On The Lines’
debut single, and it comes accompanied by a Brandon Herman-directed
video. The clip’s collage aesthetic fits Gunn into a whimsical world
where bugs are seven times their appropriate size. The song was inspired
by Rebecca Solnit’s A Field Guide to Getting Lost.
Ever since R.E.M. parted ways a few years ago, Michael Stipe has
mostly shied away from the spotlight. But he’s taking part in this
weekend’s David Bowie tribute concerts at Carnegie Hall. And last night, he brought his massive new Rasputin beard to The Tonight Show, making his debut TV performance as a solo artist. With only a pianist backing him up, Stipe sang “The
Man Who Sold The World,” Bowie’s oft-covered classic, and he did it as
an impressionist hymn. We don’t always think of Stipe as a great pure
singer, but this is a really nice performance, tingly and beautifully
sung. There are some high notes toward the end that are just
crystalline.
Philly shoegazers NOTHING will release a new album in May, and we’ve already seen a video for its first single “Vertigo Flowers.”
The album’s second single “Eaten By Worms” comes with a video
co-directed by Kevin Haus and NOTHING’s guitarist Dominic Palermo, who
told Rolling Stone a bit about the song’s meaning:
The song is very much about being in pain and dancing
with the feverish curiosity of whether this life is any more significant
then what comes after or what came before… It’s very much about letting
go.
In the clip, a man who’s been bludgeoned by burglars falls into a comatose state and meets Michael Jackson.
Texas-via-Chicago husband-and-wife team Cross Record have kicked off 2016 with a bang. We gave them Band To Watch honors last fall off the strength of the gloomy, atmospheric single “Steady Waves.” And they didn’t disappoint when their stellar album Wabi-Sabi dropped at the end of January. Today they follow their visuals for “Basket”
with a clip for the woozy, warped “Lemon.” Director Andrew McGlennon’s
video follows a charming elderly man on the beach who’s fond of the
sauce. Not much more too it than that.
From a young age, we’re taught that the shy ones are the ones with
the least amount of power. But as we get older, we learn that’s often
not the case, that those shouting tend to have the least interesting
things to say, and that sometimes it’s in your best interest to stay
quiet, especially if that’s your predisposition. One particularly
poignant line in “Talking Quietly Of Anything With You” — the title
track from Free Cake For Every Creature’s upcoming new album — addresses
the struggle to find your voice when that voice may not naturally be
that loud: “I used to cover my ears/ It took me years to believe I could
be quiet and still uncompromising.” The realization that quiet does not
equal weak, that you can still assert yourself without giving up your
introversion, is a powerful one. Katie Bennett makes quiet pop songs for
quiet people, but they’re never weak. The rest of “Talking Quietly Of
Anything With You” deals with feeling unmoored in a new city; the title
alludes to finding that someone who you can talk to about anything at
whatever volume you feel most comfortable — an important partnership,
one that you should hold onto. The track comes attached to a video
directed by Craig Scheihing .
B-52s singer Kate Pierson struck out on her own last year with her solo debut Guitars And Microphones,
and it seems there’s more where that came from. She’s putting out a new
7″ single, “Venus” b/w “Radio In Bed,” next month as one of Jack
White’s Third Man Records’ Record Store Day releases, which will also
include a 2xLP set (one red, one white) of the White Stripes’
never-before-released 2001 sessions with John Peel and a limited edition
7″ of Jack White covering Stevie Wonder’s “You Are The Sunshine Of My
Life” pressed on It’s Not Easy Being Green Colored Vinyl™. Both of
Pierson’s tracks were produced by White himself, and today the a-side, a
cover of Shocking Blue’s 1969 hit “Venus,” has arrived, along with a
kitschy video from director Brad Holland. Watch and listen below.
After receiving attention for “Once Told,” a protest song about Ireland’s abortion laws, London indie rockers Hawk have released a new video for their single “The Hunt.”
Both the music and director James Byrne’s visuals embody the sense of
drama and emotional evocation for which this band is becoming known.
With dreary surroundings to match the solemn orchestral undertones, HAWK
weave a plot which, though relatively esoteric, definitely perpetuates a
sense that their rebellious nature will continue to be a key factor of
their sound. Some background on the video from singer Julie Hawk:
The song is really all about taking control of your life and letting go of excuses.
We filmed with James Byrne again, which was a pleasure as always. We
wanted to take the simple idea of being hunted but in a slow-burning,
eerie way, that might go unnoticed, even in broad daylight, until it’s
too late. So we invited a bunch of friends down to Arundel for the day
and asked them to chase us, very slowly, around the woods. They were
much obliged!
Kamasi Washington feels like jazz’s first crossover star in a long
time, and certainly like the first in a while who found fame without
smoothing out the wilder edges of his sound. And now he’s gotten to the
point where he can play his funky saxophone freakouts on public
television. Last week, as Pitchfork points out, Washington was a guest on the PBS talk show Charlie Rose.
On the show, he talked a bit about the connections between jazz and
hip-hop. And he and his band also performed “Re Run” and “The Rhythm
Changes,” two of the songs from Washington’s massive 2015 triple album The Epic. Watch the whole 20-minute segment below.
SXSW is an extremely ADHD environment in which I rarely watch an
entire performance by any band, but I watched two Dilly Dally sets all
the way through this year because their live show is just that good.
They’re taking it all over North America this year, and we’ve got some
new dates below along with the video for “Snake Head” from last year’s Sore.
This is the song they’ve been opening with on tour, and it serves as a
hell of an introduction, an infectiously ugly mess of howling and
pounding and melodic lead guitar. Scott Cudmore’s clip finds the band
having a humorous subtitled conversation in a shitty apartment. All the
bands out there making garbage music videos should take note: This is a
great example of how you can make an entertaining video on a low budget.
If the people who stand to profit off selling every last scrap from
Jeff Buckley’s archives several times over insist on doing so, the least
they can do is try something fun and unique with it — something like
this Choose Your Own Adventure-style video for “Just Like A Woman,” Buckley’s Bob Dylan cover from the new early rarities comp You And I. It was produced by the interactive media company Interlude and Blind design studios. Here’s how it works, according to Mashable:
You can click on 73 different story cells to change the
narrative, and there are around 1 sexdecillion ways that the story could
play out, according to the video’s creators. For the record, that’s a
“one” with 51 zeros after it. You can control the narrative musically as well. The video starts
with just Buckley’s voice accompanied by a guitar — but from there, it
can go in several different directions. A piano, a full orchestration
and a choir can join in, depending on your choices. In fact, there are
over 16,000 different music combinations possible — so good luck
listening to it the same way twice.
The actual variation is negligible if you ask me, but there’s a cool (500) Days Of Summer effect to seeing the various phases of the romance at different times.
Last month, after the tragic and untimely death of band member
Benjamin Curtis, New York dreampoppers School Of Seven Bells released SVIIB, their final album. Today, as Noisey points out, they’ve shared a video for their swooping album track “Ablaze.” Alan Del Rio Ortiz
directed it, and it shows grainy, ’80s-looking images of city streets
and of Alejandra Deheza, the band’s surviving member.
Australian born, NY-based experimental pop duo Young Magic dropped the single “Lucien” from their forthcoming album, Still Life,
a few weeks ago. Like much of the album, the track is inspired by
vocalist Melati Malay rediscovering her roots in Java, Indonesia. Down
to the gamelan — an ensemble music of Java and Bali in Indonesia made up
mostly percussive instruments mixing metallophones played by mallets
and hand-played drums called kendhang — the Indonesian influence on the
track is conspicuous.
Today, the duo release a matching clip via The FADER
that is just as prominently Indonesian. Malay is draped in traditional
Indonesian clothing as lingering slow-motion shots of her enveloped by
fog, running through a sparse forest, and masked dancers create an
alluring mysticism. Combined with the already captivating song, it’s
sure to put you in a mild trance for just under five minutes.
The introspective Brighton indie-pop trio Fear Of Men will return soon with the new album Fall Forever, and we posted the first single “Island”
a little while ago. Now Fear Of Men have made a supremely gothed-out
and atmospheric video for that song. It’s got candles, fog machines,
desolate English moors, circles of flame, bodies on altars — all the
hallmarks. Eleanor Hardwick directed the video, and you can watch it below, via The FADER.
Future and the Weeknd have debuted the their video for “Low Life,” the EVOL track they also performed on SNL.
Director Zac Facts’ clip finds the bad-guy duo performing in a smoky
abandoned house, which seems like an appropriate hideout for musical
supervillains of this ilk. Watch below.
It was hard to keep up with Chief Keef for little bit with all the dumb shit, controversial moves, and crazy amount of music
he did last year. But he’s slowed down since, and has been trickling
out videos from his various projects. He kicked off the year with a
video for “Superheroes” featuring A$AP Rocky, and he’s back today with clip for “Faneto” a song he dropped in 2014.
This video took a long time to come out — so long that it’s been a whole year since this fan-made turn-up compilation emerged
— and there was a fair amount of anticipation for it. But honestly, I
don’t have much to say about it, partly because it’s Friday, but also
because Chief Keef really put the chief in his moniker with the biggest
joint I have ever seen in my life in this video. The visuals have a cool
aesthetic with plenty of gleaming gold jewelry, and classic clique
shots, but there is so much tree laying around and he stuffs so much of
it in papers the size of paper towels that it’s hard to watch anything
else. I’m not a smoker at all, but all I could do is marvel at the
greenery and joints that put cigars to shame waving in his hand as he
raps. If you can get past it, let me know what’s going on in the video
other than weed in the comment section. *Wide-eyed, rosy cheek emoji
times three*.
UK duo and Band To Watch alums Nai Harvest were named
Most Energetic at our Austin Invasion with Exploding In Sound last
week, and they’re following that honor and a successful SXSW run with a
new video for “Just Like You,” one of the two tracks on their upcoming 7″ that’s due out next month. The video was directed by Natalie Wardle, who is also the focal point as she dances and does some prancercizing
around the band, who stand as still as statues. She throws paint on
them and herself in an effort to get them to join in on the fun, but to
no avail. Here’s how Wardle breaks down the video:
This is a comical observation and short performance highlighting how we
(the human race) start the year focusing on our obsession with body
image, following the trend of ‘getting in shape’ and how we’re always
trying to ‘better ourselves’ by making these crazy promises to ‘stop
doing this…’ and ‘start doing that’…
However, things turn sour when people around us lose interest and
we’re fighting a battle with ourselves to keep up the work out will
power. Finally, we give up! Back to our old ways like everyone else,
‘just like you’. There’s always next year. We shot this video in one take to illustrate that if we put our minds
to something we can achieve it, but it’s never going to be perfect.
A$AP Ferg’s acronymic Always Strive And Prosper, which he divulged about in our recent cover story, is due out next month. We’ve heard the banger “New Level” featuring Future, and an unofficial leak of the “Let It Bang” surfaced yesterday, but today we’ve got official audio for the latter along with a set of visuals.
The “Let It Bang” clip opens with a snippet of another track from the
album, “Psycho,” which is about Ferg’s uncle on the streets of Hungry
Ham in Harlem, then a gunshot transition marks a quick cut to the
ScHoolboy Q assist and marries the New York of old and new. The clip is
definitely a NYC affair, featuring Ol’ Dirty Bastard’s son, Young Dirty
Bastard (naturally), a cameo from Meech of the Flatbush Zombies,
bodegas, playground courts, Jesus pieces, Timberlands, and hoodies. Q
(A$AP Q as the A$AP Mob calls him) comes in dipped in black-and-gold to
spit his verse with plenty of energy and rapid jump cuts while Ferg dons
a stocking mask brandishing a huge butcher knife. Peep it.
Dominant Mississippi party-rap crew Rae Sremmurd have been busy lately; in the last few weeks, they’ve released the new Trail Mix mixtape, from their Sremm Life Crew, and shared a great video for “By Chance.”
Today, they’ve got another new video, and it’s for a tinny new track
called “Over Here,” which features Sremm Life Crew member Bo Bo Swae. In
the clip, Mike Will Made-It beams them into outer space, where they
ride dinosaurs and become characters in 8-bit video games. Watch it
below.
BJ The Chicago Kid is getting one hell of a push on his major label debut, In My Mind.
After guesting on hooks for pretty much every up-and-coming you could
name for a long time, he’s finally got them to return the favor on his
album. One of those favors is the coveted feature from his close friend
Kendrick Lamar on “The New Cupid.” BJ smoothly croons and K-Dot kills
his verse — business as usual. The video features your favorite rapper’s
favorite comedian Hannibal Buress, and it’s another successful
crossover. Buress bops around in a disheveled fit and wig Funkadelic
would be proud of as he does a string of mischievous deeds like peeing
in a lemonade pitcher and slapping Popsicles out children’s hands. Iamsu
comes in to clean up his messes, and Kendrick Lamar comes in to spit
his feature verse as if he’s workshopping it with BJ for the first time.
It’s the kind of chill, down-to-earth stuff you would expect from BJ.
Last fall, Philadelphia-via-Scranton four-piece Three Man Cannon put out Will I Know You Then, a collection of dusty and plaintive rock tracks that served as a follow-up to their 2014 full-length Pretty Many People.
Today, in advance of a North American tour, the band has released a
video for a track from their latest EP, “Coma’d” The band are among a
group of cult members in the woods, and the video — which was directed
by Timothy Becker and Edward Newton, and edited Federico R. Casanova —
follows them until they end up in the water, spiritually cleansed and
possibly free. It’s a clip based on mood more so than narrative, much
like Three Man Cannon’s songs themselves.
George Clinton and Funkadelic shared a remix of “Ain’t That Funkin’ Hard On You?”
back in September that featured Kendrick Lamar and Ice Cube as well as
production by Louie Vega. The new accompanying video follows the
collaborators on an astral journey through the cosmos. A dance party
ensues, obviously. Check it out below via REVOLT.
In a realist sense, covering Nirvana at this late date should be
gimmicky as hell. But in an idealist sense, completely transforming one
of Kurt Cobain’s best-known songs has the potential to be transcendent.
When I heard country philosopher Sturgill Simpson was taking on the Nevermind classic “In Bloom” on his new album A Sailor’s Guide To Earth,
I feared gimmickry but was blessed with transcendence. Simpson turned
“In Bloom” into first a weepy, twangy ballad and then a celebratory
blast of brass, his drawl doing justice to Cobain’s lyrics all the
while. It’s really good, so hear it in conjunction with director Matt
Mahurin’s video.
Former Woods member Kevin Morby is gearing up to release his new full-length Singing Saw in just a few weeks. We’ve already heard a preview of the album and seen him continue his knack for good videos with “I Have Been To The Mountain.” Today he shares another teaser track called “Dorothy.”
The song is a nice, bright piece of bouncy folk rock, with Morby’s
smooth monotone delivery cutting through exquisitely layered electric
guitar, intricate drum work, quick horn section, bell tings, and banging
piano chords. There’s a lot going on, but it doesn’t feel overwhelming.
Morby sings “We can go all night” to close the song, and the way he’s
jamming on the track it’s easy to believe. It’s just a fun song about
having fun with your best gal, good for singing along or dancing
whatever you wish.
The clip is simple, featuring Morby sauntering down a dirt road past
his band members looking dapper and relaxed in a suit and bolo tie.
My bubba comprises a pair of Scandinavian women named My (pronounced
“me,” from Sweden) and Bubba (pronounced “bubba,” from Iceland). Will
Oldham collaborator Shahzad Ismaily recorded their forthcoming album Big Bad Good at his Brooklyn studio on the spot as the songs were written. They’re selling it via PledgeMusic,
with bonus perks including handwritten lyric sheets, a personal concert
via Skype, and authentic bacteria from My and Bubba sampled during the
recording sessions (for real).
The album includes the wonderfully intimate ballad “Charm,” an
ABBA-referencing beauty that today gets an appropriately placid and
minimal video. A sunlight beach plays host to a carnival, a prancing
deer, and a helicopter hovering over the water, but all the noise you’d
expect to hear is stripped away in favor of gentle cooing and gorgeous
guitar work. It’s as if you’re wandering through the world with
headphones on, blocking out the chaos in favor of serenity. Here’s some
background on the song from My:
The lyrics are the CliffsNotes of my unauthorized
autobiography. We shot the video on Bubba’s birthday. We wanted to make a
dance piece filmed as a documentary and blockbuster at the same time.
Bubba plays herself on her birthday and the deer plays me and the
helicopter plays the part of Napoleon Bonaparte at the battle of
Waterloo.
Saul Williams’ last video
saw him walking barefoot through the streets of Ferguson, MO, and his
next visual continues that politically charged angle, this time using
archival footage of war and rich politicians to backdrop “Down For Some
Ignorance,” a track off his new album, MartyrLoserKing.
Williams himself cradles a spooky mummified baby and plays some
haunting strings while wearing a bird mask. It was directed by Rafe
Scobey-Thal.
Goth-pop singer-songwriter Marissa Nadler is set to release her new album, Strangers, the followup to 2014’s July. She shared the lead single “Janie In Love” a month ago, and today she’s back with visuals for the followup “All The Colors Of The Dark.”
The song is beautifully gloomy and bare, with little more than
entrancing strings, subdued percussion, and lightly strummed guitars
giving way to Nadler’s feathery, haunting vocals. The song’s
black-and-white, live-action, stop motion clip was directed and animated
by Nadler. It’s a perfect visual complement to the song, using every
bit of light and shadow on the grayscale for gorgeous literal
translation of the song’s title. The richness of both the deep shadows
and the bright bursts of light mirror Nadler’s floating vocals cutting
through the melancholy soundscapes, eliciting the beauty that is present
in darkness once one is comfortable dwelling there.
The last we heard from Yours Are The Only Ears — the muted folk project of visual artist Susannah Cutler — was 2014’s “Fire In My Eyes.”
She’s followed that up this year with another new song called “Low,”
which adds some soft synths and chimes to the mix but largely hews
towards minimalism. It’s a quietly despairing track about the passing of
time and constantly fluctuating emotions; the most cutting line is “I
used to make decisions, but these days they make me,” a pointed
surrendering of control to fate. The track comes attached to a
beautifully serene video directed by Taya Bayat, which follows Cutler
and keyboardist JongMin Lin through the American Museum Of Natural
History and Central Park.
Max Kakacek, the former Smith Westerns guitarist, and Julien Ehrlich,
the singing drummer who used to play in Unknown Mortal Orchestra, have a
new band called Whitney, and they play jangly and shambolic indie rock.
We’ve already posted the band’s “No Woman” video, and now they’ve announced that their debut album Light Upon The Lake
will be coming out in a few months. They recorded the album in
California, with Foxygen’s Jonathan Rado producing, white they slept in
tents in the backyard. And their new single “Golden Days,” a supremely
laid-back rocker with some breezy horns, is a real
camping-in-the-backyard jammer. In the video, from directors, Josiah Marshall and Frank Frankowski, a reel-to-reel tape player becomes a portal to a more chill universe.
Billie Eilish is 14 years old, the child of two actor/musicians from
LA. She cites Lana Del Rey and Tyler, The Creator as key influences, and
that’s clear enough from her new “Ocean Eyes” video, which borrows the
former’s noirish drama and the latter’s knack for compelling one-take clips.
But for all Eilish’s idiosyncratic influences, the song is pure pop, a
ballad about longing for reconciliation with an ex. I can imagine it
becoming a major hit, and director Megan Thompson’s video will certainly
help. Eilish has the star power to sell a song with little more than
some dramatic glances under moody lighting.
Virginia rapper D.R.A.M. is looking to keep the momentum going after some high-energy performances at SXSW
that were sure to gain him some new fans. He’s dropped off a clip for
the trap ballad “Signals (Throw It Around)” from last year’s buzz
catalyst, the Gahdamn!
EP. The visuals feature D.R.A.M. at a chill kickback with the homies
with plenty of old school whips, dancing, drinking, and smoking to boot.
Day turns to night about halfway through and the party don’t stop;
instead, D.R.A.M. and his friends dance the night away illuminated by
headlights. Chance The Rapper and Donnie Trumpet make a quick cameo as
Trumpet sits behind the wheel of a convertible and Chance perches on the
hood with his feet in the backseat. It’s a fun video for a song with
lots of lowkey feels. Check it out.
Field Music have released a showy performance music video for “Disappointed,” a track from their most recent full-length Commontime. Director Andy Martin explains the conception of the video to Noisey:
It was partly inspired by me seeing (many years ago) the
bullet time technique used in a Ryoichiro Debuchi film from the early
80s. We filmed these bullet time sequences on a freezing January day in
the sports hall/gym of the Sans Street Youth and Community Centre
(thanks to them!), which is in the East End of Sunderland. Pete and Dave
used to play football there when they were younger, think their Mum
used to work there.
Laurel Sprengelmeyer, the Montreal-based pop experimenter who records
as Little Scream, has roped in practically the entire indie rock A-list
to appear on Cult Following, her forthcoming album. As Pitchfork points out,
the LP has a very impressive list of guests: Sufjan Stevens! Sharon Van
Etten! The National’s Bryce and Aaron Dessner! TV On The Radio’s Kyp
Malone! Owen Pallett! Folk veteran Mary Margaret O’Hara, who isn’t indie
rock but is impressive! And she made the whole thing with Arcade Fire’s
Richard Reed Parry, credited as her “creative partner.” Dan Huiting directed the colorful, energetic video for her peppy, frenetic single
“Love As A Weapon,” and it’s heavy on wood-panel kitsch, snowy
landscapes, and vogue dancers.
Hundred Waters released their sophomore album The Moon Rang Like A Bell
back in the summer of 2014 on Skrillex’s label OWSLA. It’s an album
ready-made for remixing, and a few months after its release, the
Floridian band put out the Down From The Rafters Remix EP featuring contributions from Huxley, the Field, and Tim Hecker. “Show Me Love” is one of The Moon Rang Like A Bell’s
stand-out tracks, and Skrillex re-imagined it alongside Chance The
Rapper and Moses Sumney with arrangements contributed by Robin Hannibal.
It’s a jacked-up, energized iteration of the hymn-like song. Watch the
video below; it’s also Skrillex’s directorial debut.
Andy Shauf’s new video for “The Magician,” a lushly arranged pop-rock throwback off his upcoming album The Party,
takes you on a kaleidoscopic journey of passing vintage stock
photography and paper doll scenes. The video begins with the image of a
boy lying on the beach beside the orchestrated pull of a paper tide, but
piece by piece the scene is torn apart to take us to a different,
whimsical world made up of random magazine cut outs. Shauf himself is
cut and pasted into this 2D puppet theatre, too, remaining stationary
over the shifting backgrounds, or what might be a glimpse into his
magical mind. But even he is torn apart and as the video comes to an
end, we are left in the abyss of space, with only our friend from the
beach to disrupt the pieced-together scenery. Winston Hacking directs.
Goth-rock purveyor Chelsea Wolfe darkened last summer with the dense, decidedly metal Abyss, and it was excellent. Since then she’s planned a new two-track 7″ this April that comprises Abyss B-sides. The first offering was the chasmic, gloomy “Hypnos” and it moved away from the heavy-handed rock of the album with bare, stripped, but still ever so bleak soundscapes.
Today, she’s given “Hypnos” a visual treatment full of beautiful
despair to match the song perfectly. A deft play of light and shadows in
black-and-white, the video features Wolfe alternating between bathing
in darkness and basking in light as she eerily caresses huge snakes
coiled in her arms and wrapped precariously around her body. She
performs the song popping in and out of old school television screens
with staticky images. The darkness engulfs her, and the slow-lingering
shots are alluring, making the video an apt foray into the song’s title.
Aussie songwriter-turned-pop force Sia is back with another black-and-blonde affair starring Dance Moms’
Maddie Ziegler. The pairing is pretty much old hat now, but it’s still
entertaining. The choreography for “Cheap Thrills” is a bit more fun and
incorporates some hip-hop movement as Maddie and two other dancers
bounce around for a high-energy routine making silly faces in nude
leotards. Sia shows up in the second half of the video, and she may or
not be making the same silly faces under her signature huge wig, but who
knows? The moves match one of the lighter songs on This Is Acting. It’s a fun watch self-directed by Sia with the help of go-to director Daniel Askill.
Nicholas Allbrook, the former Tame Impala bassist who currently leads
the Australian psych-rock band Pond, just announced the impending
release of his new solo album, as Pitchfork points out. The new album is called Pure Gardiya,
and it’ll be out later this spring. First single “Advance” is a
lush-but-damaged glam-rocker, and it reminds me of both Destroyer and
Ariel Pink. Matt Sav directed the song’s striking, cinematic video,
which shows Allbrook, at various points, covered in glittery makeup and
blood, and surrounded by swirling dancers and taxidermied swans. Watch
it below.
Virginia singer-songwriter Lucy Dacus dropped her latest album No Burden last month. It’s excellent. The lead single “I Don’t Wanna Be Funny Anymore”
is a highly relatable jam; I’m sure you could substitute “funny” for a
multitude of words to make it apply to you. No one wants to be put in a
box, and this song is like poking fresh air holes in that box and
reminding yourself that you don’t have to be what everyone expects you
to be.
Today, the song gets a matching clip from director Hunter Brumfield
that is just as easy to identify with. Dacus is performing deadpan
standup at what looks like a high school talent show. It begins with her
singing the lyrics sans smiles or any warmth at all. Then members of
the crowd get to break out of the boxes they’ve been placed in as they
mouth specific lines from Dacus’ that seem to stereotypically apply to
them. It’s a smart visual take on a song that universally registers.
The former Beta Band frontman Steve Mason released a new album called Meet The Humans last month, and his new video for the strummy, swirling “Alive” dropped this morning. Like his clip for “Planet Sizes,”
it’s an animated video with an allegorical bent to it. This one takes
place in a pixelated world that looks like a King’s Quest-era computer
game, and in this world, we all have floating monster heads living with
us and tormenting with us. Mason is the rare messianic figure with
glasses that allow people to see the true nature of these monster heads,
and you can think of this video, from director Rok Predin, as a deeply twee version of John Carpenter’s They Live. Of course, any version of They Live is a good thing to have in your life, and you can and should watch the “Alive” video.
Teen Suicide, the cultishly beloved lo-fi band led by Baltimore’s Sam Ray, are returning in a little over a week with It’s The Big Joyous Celebration, Let’s Stir The Honeypot, their first full-length since 2012’s equally lengthily-titled I Will Be My Own Hell Because There Is A Devil Inside My Body.
They were supposed to perform at SXSW this week but ended up canceling,
but they’ve made up for it by releasing the video for new song “The Big
Joyous Celebration,” the title track from their upcoming LP. “It’s
about death, sort of, and rituals,” Sam Ray explained to Nylon,
where the clip premiered. “It’s kind of a love story, but not in a
romantic way. Like a love story between a sort of ‘collector’ who knows
how to raise the dead, and the now-reanimated bodies he’s able to summon
and then hunt down.” The video follows a suited man as he gets dressed
and goes about his business, while the song’s mantra of “Oh, let’s stir
the honeypot/ Depression is a construct/ Heaven is a package deal/ Don’t
need proof to know it’s real” slowly morphs from dreary to uplifting.
This summer, Bat For Lashes will release The Bride,
a new concept album sung from the perspective of a woman whose fiancee
dies in a crash on the way to their wedding. We’ve already heard two of
the album’s songs, “I Do” and “In God’s House,”
and this morning, she’s shared a video for the latter. Natasha Khan
conceived the idea of the video, and she co-directed it with John De Menil.
The striking clip is made to look like a ’70s movie, and it stars Khan,
in a fur coat and a red veil, visiting a neon-lit gravesite in the
middle of a desert.
“The Community Of Hope,” the new single from PJ Harvey’s forthcoming album The Hope Six Demolition Project,
is about the Washington, DC area Ward 7, and it’s about all the
problems that come with poverty and gentrification.
The song’s new video was shot entirely in DC, and Harvey doesn’t appear
in it at all. Instead, her regular recent collaborator, the wartime
photographer Seamus Murphy, went to DC and captured a range of everyday sights, just like he did in Kosovo for Harvey’s “The Wheel”
video. The clip ends with a gospel choir howling the final sardonic
refrain: “They’re gonna build a Wal-Mart here.” Local city council
candidates are probably not going to be any happier about the song when
they see this.
DFA Records mainstay Marcus Lambkin makes propulsive, old-school
disco-house under the name Shit Robot. He also has a knack for finding
and recruiting like-minded collaborators like Reggie Watts, Nancy Whang,
and now Hot Chip’s Alexis Taylor, who lends his reedy vocals to “End Of
The Trail,” the first single off of Shit Robot’s upcoming LP What Follows.
Taylor also features in the track’s trippy new video — or at least an
abstracted version of his face that reminds me of those old pinscreen
toys. Watch below via Spin.
The former Sonic Youth co-leader Kim Gordon has a new band, a duo
called Glitterbust that also features Tomorrow’s Tulips member Alex
Knost. They just released their self-titled debut earlier this month,
and now they’ve got a video for “The Highline,”
the droning, minimalist zone-out that served as the album’s single. For
the video, director Thomas Campbell filmed them playing in an otherwise
empty Orange County, California industrial park. Talking to Interview,
Gordon says the video shows, “alien, embryonic beings traipsing through
the empty night, creating a ‘desire path’ through the empty industrial
complex of Orange County, like lost cultural ghosts.”
Cassius have put out the music video for “Action,”
their first new song in six years. Having spent the time since their
last release by producing for artists like Kanye West, Jay Z, and the
Beastie Boys, the French house duo’s collaboration with Cat Power and
Mike D seems only natural, but this video makes it clear that the two
don’t plan on re-introducing their personal project to the world
quietly. Taking place in a hyper-colorful tropical world of their own
design, it’s the perfect accompaniment for the funky and over-the-top
music, as Cassius blend infectious bass lines with horns and an uptempo
beat while still leaving room for Chan Marshall and Mike D’s vocals to
stand out amongst the massive amount of loud colors and bright sounds.
UK trip-hop godfathers Massive Attack released their return-to-form Ritual Spirit EP earlier this year, and thus far, all the videos for the EP’s tracks have been dark, absorbing works. The “Take It There” video had John Hawkes stumbling through nighttime city streets, and the “Voodoo In My Blood”
video had Rosamund Pike facing off against a mysterious orb. The new
clip for the EP’s title track is the first that doesn’t have an Academy
Award nominee in it. Instead, this one stars the supermodel Kate Moss,
who spends the entire video dancing in a very dark room, spinning a
lightbulb around on a chord. Nothing really happens in the clip, but it
makes a hypnotic accompaniment to the song. Robert Del Naja, better
known as the Massive Attack driving force 3D, co-directed the video with
Medium. Watch it below, and read some words about it from Del Naja and
Moss.
Earlier this week, the dominant Southern party-rap duo Rae Sremmurd released Trail Mix, the new mixtape from their Sremm Life Crew. Before that, though, they shared a really great new single called “By Chance,”
which has a Mike Will Made-It beat that’s strange and queasy enough to
remind me of early-’00s Def Jux productions. (It’s apparently set for
Mike Will’s Ransom 2 mixtape.) Mike Will co-directed the new
“By Chance” video with Max, and it’s a vision just as strange and
infectious as the song itself. In the clip, Rae Sremmurd and their
friends party on a beach in a thunderstorm. It’s full of colored smoke
and synchronized dancing and doves, and you could turn almost any random
shot into a gif.
Classixx — the duo made up of Cali-based producers Tyler Blake and Michael David — released their very impressive debut Hanging Gardens
all the way back in 2013. Over the past few months, they’ve been
greasing the gears and prepping for a new release: Last fall they put
out the T-Pain-featuring “Whatever I Want,” and followed that up with a Natalie Prass cover in honor of Valentine’s Day. Now, they’ve shared a new track called
“Grecian Summer,” which will be featured on their upcoming sophomore
album. It comes paired with an animated video directed by Steve Smith.
Last year, Slayer made an absolutely incredible bloody-prison-riot video for their song “Repentless,” and it was one of my favorite videos of the year. Now, they’ve teamed up once again with Hatchet III
auteur BJ McDonnell, who directed that “Repentless” video, for a video
for “You Against You,” another song from their 2015 album Repentless.
This one serves as a prequel to the last one, and it consists almost
entirely of a hilariously gruesome gun/knife/bat/fistfight in a diner.
It’s the sort of video that features more than one dick-stabbing. It
also features the band playing in airplane-crash wreckage. I mean, what
do you want me to say? It’s just fucking awesome. Watch it below, via PunkNews.
ILoveMakonnen, one of the people probably most responsible for the current sound of Atlanta rap, is going to give us his Drink More Water 6 mixtape on Friday. We’ve posted early tracks like “Solo” and “Sellin,” and now Makonnen has dropped the video for “Live For Real,”
a frantically swagged-out banger that he shared late last year. In the
clip, he dirt-bikes through Los Angeles and wears a David Bowie shirt
that I really wish I owned. The single-named Max directs. Watch it
below, via Miss Info.
Arcade Fire violinist Sarah Neufeld released her solo album The Ridge last month, and today, she unveils her video for the jittery single “We’ve Got A Lot.” The clip, from director Jason Last,
captures a crew of teenagers filming themselves while doing teenage
shit at beaches and music festivals in Miami. There are some
breathtaking overhead drone shots in there, too. Watch it below, via Noisey.
Last week, one of our writers got some Twitter heat when he posted the Last Shadow Puppets’ video for “Everything You’ve Come To Expect” while pointing out how fucked up it was when Shadow Puppets member Miles Kane sexually harassed a female writer during a SPIN interview.
Here’s the thing, though: It is our job to post new music from relevant
artists. The Last Shadow Puppets are a relevant band, and their
forthcoming sophomore album, also called Everything You’ve Come To Expect,
is, at least on some level, a big deal. It’s possible, and maybe even
necessary, to acknowledge that even as we keep posting their music and
their videos. So yeah, we’re going to keep posting their music, even if
we’re pretty fucking grossed out by what Miles Kane did in that
interview. And now they’ve got a Saam Farahmand-directed
video for the new song “Aviation,” which has both Shadow Puppets
digging a grave while a weeping bride, a group of mobsters, and a
blindfolded string quartet look on. It’s a pretty cool video! Also: Fuck
these guys!
Band To Watch Mothers released their debut full length, When You Walk A Long Distance You Are Tired, last month after putting out a steady stream of excellent singles. Their first was “No Crying In Baseball,”
followed by “It Hurts Until It Doesn’t,” which Mothers are premiering a
video for today. Kristine Leschper shot the footage herself, and
describes it as an ode to her cat Casper, who is featured in some of the
band’s press photos and sadly went missing back in December:
“your cat is a friendly brother
who would offer his heart with allegiance
and if he could talk we’d be best friends
the only friend he has is his food”
– vashti bunyan, prospect hummer Casper has been missing since the 30th of December, but I still find
his hair in my bedsheets. He was as sensitive as I was. When I walked to
work in the morning, he would follow until we approached the highway,
where I bullied him into turning around. He got into fights with the
other cats, never could quite settle down. Last winter in a house
without central heat I was doing everything I could to let the
depression and anxiety finally win. Hardly more than a vague blur, this
footage is the only remaining video I have of my best friend, who was so
often the only thing keeping me rooted in reality, feeding me optimism,
helping me survive.
Australian folktronic artist Hayden Calnin specializes in lush,
spacious, genre-bending excursions. Calnin grew up in the rural woods of
Red Hill before moving to bustling Melbourne, and he combines the
cosmopolitan sensibilities he’s developed in the city with the slower,
down-home quality of his roots. He unleashed Cut Love Pt.1 the first
part of a two-part album, just last week. It’s an elegant tussle
between electro and ambient sounds and minimal folk tendencies.
Today, we receive the first visual representation of that album, and
as expected it is stunning. Shot in Melbourne and Victoria’s Otway
National Park, the self-directed clip features thick, luscious greenery
and woods in long, sweeping shots that allow you to take in the
environment. Amid the natural beauty are two dancers performing an
eloquently contemporary dance routine crafted by Lukas McFarlane that
melds the music and their surroundings perfectly. Calnin’s sparse, but
gorgeous arrangement and elongated vocal flourishes accentuate the
movements of MacFarlane (who also stars in the video alongside Calnin’s
sister, Daisy) as the camera slowly moves through trees to frame them.
It’s a beautifully orchestrated set of visuals for a pretty song.
Vancouver/Montreal band Twin River have announced their sophomore album Passing Shade and revealed the video for their recent single “Antony.”
In the flamboyant video directed by Megan-Magdalena, several masked
characters stripped of their identities paint their faces and put on a
performance for a group of easily impressed, pink-wigged bystanders.
After applying an exorbitant amount of make-up and zipping up their
vintage dresses, the masked figures indulge in a moment of ecstasy,
celebrating their curated identities under sparklers and streamers. As
they shove cake into their faces, though, the eagerness of their
audience generates an eerie feeling, as if it is a show for society’s
watchful eye.
Head Wound City is the supergroup of Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ Nick Zinner,
the Blood Brothers’ Jordan Blilie and Cody Votolato, and Justin Pearson
and Gabe Serbian of the Locust/Holy Molar. They dissolved in 2005 after
releasing just one EP and playing one live show, but now they’re back,
and they’re getting ready to unleash a whole new album of savagery onto
the world, appropriately entitled A New Wave Of Violence. They shared the aggressive first track “Scraper”
last month, and now it’s been given a fittingly bleak video from
director Eva Michon. There’s ominous black-and-white, grave-digging,
guns, and the creepiest dancing flower I’ve ever seen. What more could
one ask for?
James Righton is probably best known for his contributions to the
psych-raving Klaxons, but his new project is nothing to gloss over. The
first offering from Righton’s Shock Machine comes via the eponymous
single and matching set of visuals. “Shock Machine” is a vulnerable
plea, perhaps with some underlying worries present under shimmering
psych guitars and slow, subdued drums. There seems to be some
apprehension on Righton’s part about his new venture, but it is
expressed beautifully through this first foray. The aesthetic he
contributed on the keyboards is present within the bright synth work,
and it initially drives the track, but it is later enveloped by electric
guitars for a huge crescendo as penetrating questions hit: “But do we
need the Shock Machine?/ Will you follow me to the shock machine?” Done
and done, if larger bodies of work are going to sound like this. The
video is clever play of light and shadow with Righton silhouetted
against bright backgrounds and seaside imagery which captures the spirit
of the song perfectly. Director Saam Farahmand had this to say about
the clip: “This video is a direct symbol of spiritual transition, and
the influence of (late artist) Angus Fairhurst’s absent human cutouts.
Transition is synonymous with James and Shock Machine. Everything felt
right when we were shooting it.” Watch.
School Of Seven Bells offered an excellent, heartfelt farewell with SVIIB. Alejandra Deheza knew it would be their last album following the death of principle member Benjamin Curtis.
The album was evocative in many aspects, but with those grave emotions
shading it, the songs had an even further emotional reach.
One of the standout tracks was “On My Heart.”
Today, they gave that song a touching set of visuals. Deheza plays the
epitome of hard to get as she frantically eludes a suitor. She runs
through streets to the outskirts of the city through hilly terrain,
until he finally catches her and they share an emotional kiss. The
American Millennial and Noah Kentis-directed clip is shot perfectly to
elicit the same emotions the song does.
After detailing We Can Do Anything, their first album in 16 years, Violent Femmes shared the lead single “Memory”
— a frantic, folky upstart. Now that the album is out, they’ve given
“Memory” a matching set of visuals, and the video mirrors the song to a
tee. Animated pictures drift crudely across the screen like a moving
collage as the song careens along. Members of the band appear as cutouts
interacting with a seemingly anything that comes to mind from bald
eagles to giraffes, to flying bicycles and beach chairs. It’s a bit of a
wacky video, but it’s very fitting for the song. Watch.
Veteran NYC underground MC Homeboy Sandman has been hitting us with
tongue-twisting barrages for quite some time now. His latest offering,
the Lice
EP with Aesop Rock, was a one-two flurry of lyrical jabs. Today, he
comes with the loosie “Life Support” and gives it the visual treatment.
The track has all the clever wordplay we’ve come to expect from Boy
Sand, and will probably have you rewinding for comprehension in a couple
spots. The video features some inventive live action stop motion, with
the rapper pulling sand on himself at the beach like a blanket, and
laying in a garden covered in grass and flowers. Nothing Sandman does is
ordinary, and the Pace Rivers-directed clip reflects his alluring
eccentricity. Peep it.
If you want to understand how fluid the genre signifier “psych” can
be, consider what a vast spectrum of sounds King Gizzard & The
Lizard Wizard have explored throughout their discography. In the last
two years the Melbourne ensemble’s output has spanned spazzed-out garage rock, tripped-out blues, and mellowed-out pop
among other engaging sounds. And they’ve found yet another iteration of
themselves to explore on the new LP they’re announcing today.
Nonagon Infinity might be King Gizzard’s hardest-hitting release. Arriving on the heels of last year’s downright pleasant Paper Mâché Dream Balloon,
the new album plunges their sound back into aggressive territory,
infusing Sabbath/Motorhead-style hard rock with frantic energy and a
cartoonish blast of color. Lead single “Gamma Knife” makes a fine
teaser, especially when accompanied by a music video involving monks
committing mass ritual suicide. Co-directors Danny Cohen and Jason Galea
did a good job capturing the music’s alternately dark and playful
spirit, and the band’s acting definitely sells their loopy vision.
But more than most lead singles, “Gamma Knife” is only part of a larger whole. The title Nonagon Infinity
refers to the album’s physical properties: There are nine songs, and
ATO is pressing the record on nine-sided vinyl — that’s a nonagon, for
you non-geometry nerds. Furthermore, the songs flow into each other in a
seamless loop that could feasibly continue forever, putting the
infinity in Nonagon Infinity. Aside from packaging and/or
conceptual exploits, though, it’s just a rad record full of exciting
music.
It’s been way too long since we’ve heard from the experimental New Jersey noise-rap crew Dãlek. Their last album Gutter Tactics
came out in 2009, which means we’ve lived out the entire goofy Death
Grips saga in the time that they’ve been gone. But they’re coming back
next month with a new album called Asphalt For Eden, recorded
with a new lineup but the same sonic-collision aesthetic. First single
“Guaranteed Struggle” sounds like a classic NY boom-bap track built on
top of a titanic surge of Kevin Shields-esque guitar noise. The video,
from director Chris Stone, shows us a fantasia of dancing ski-masked
figures.
Eleanor Friedberger went to school in Texas, which means she’s been
around SXSW both as an observer and performer for quite a while now.
With the festival right around the corner, she’s sharing a new video for
her New View track “Never Is A Long Time” made up of old footage from past iterations of the Austin event. As Pitchfork
points out, Jeff Tweedy, Wesley Willis, the Jayhawks, Old 97s, Jon
Langford, Beatle Bob, and MTV VJ Tabitha Soren all make appearances.
Here’s what Friedberger had to say about the video:
When I was a student at the University of Texas, South by
Southwest meant seeing five shows a day instead of five shows a week.
There was no line to see Iggy Pop perform on a small outdoor stage off
6th Street or watch Wayne Coyne conduct his parking lot experiment.
These were very formative years for me and watching these scenes, shot
in 1996, is a good reminder that I still aspire to make music for my
19-year-old self, not music entirely dictated by computers and
commercial interests.
Philadelphia DIY pop auteur Alex G dropped his proper indie label debut, Beach Music,
last fall. It was technically his seventh album, and it played as such.
There was a certain comfort to that collection of songs, but also the
confidence to push things a bit further. Today, he revisits the album
with a video for it’s tenth track, “Mud.” The track is a stripped,
earthy plea with nothing but light guitar strums and Alex’s voice to
build something beautiful. The clip, directed by Alex and Colin
Acchione, matches those qualities. It’s simply Alex and a lady friend
meandering through the woods having fun. They eat leaves, do crazy
dances, and crack jokes contrasted against shaky, sped up shots of city
lights and skylines. The juxtaposition of those differing scenes
reinforces the bareness of the song for a soothing effect.
Queen of atmospheric ambience Julianna Barwick will return with a new
album this spring, and today she’s debuting a video for its first
single “Nebula.” Barwick self-produced Will, which marks a distinct departure from her last excellent full-length >Nepenthe,
which was produced by Alex Somers. Barwick spends a great deal of time
on the road touring, and in a press release she stated that Will was derived from experiencing her life in a constant state of flux. The
video for “Nebula” was directed by Derrick Belcham and filmed in the
Philip Johnson Glass House in New Canaan, Connecticut.
Dave Harrington is a former jazz guitarist who, along with Nicolas
Jaar, used to be half of the spaced out electro-psych duo Darkside. More
recently, Harrington announced that he’d formed the Dave Harrington
Group and that he’d release an album called Become Alive later this month; we’ve already posted the title track.
And now Harrington has shared a video — one that may be a proper music
video or may just be live video of his band playing in a room somewhere;
it’s hard to tell, exactly. In any case, the clip, from director Artem Aisagaliev, shows Harrington and his band spending 10 minutes playing “White Heat,” the expansive, heavy instrumental that opens Become Alive. It has me amped about the album.
Following the recent release of album Better Nature,
Silversun Pickups will begin a three-month tour of North America later
this week. But first, the band has released a new music video for their
single “Circadian Rhythm.” Like the song itself, the video features
bassist Nikki Monninger in a starring role. Utilizing a healthy dose of
melodrama, smoke, and glitter, the band shows off their ability to
produce visuals to match their high-energy dream-pop sound.
The move to morph gendered insults like “bitch” and “slut” into words of empowerment is anongoingdebate
in the feminist community, and Anna Wise’s new single plays into that
conversation and comes out as a powerful reclamation of identity.
“BitchSlut” takes the form of a laundry list of demeaning and reductive
stereotypes and gives them the finger at every corner: “Walking down the
street with my hands tied/ ‘Cus I wore a skirt, you think I’m down to
ride/ You think I want to fuck because I comb my hair, because I’m at
the bar next to an open chair,” Wise rap-sings over a heady beat
punctuated by some Dirty Projectors-style vocal gasps, exuding
confidence and swagger. At this point, Wise is best known for her vocal
contributions to Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp A Butterfly and untitled unmastered. (which she won a Grammy
for), but she’ll release her debut EP later this year, and “BitchSlut”
is reason to get excited that she’ll be stepping directly into the
spotlight. The video comes attached to a self-directed, home-recorded
video shot by Patti Miller.
Odd Future’s R&B sextet the Internet turned in an excellent album in last year’s Ego Death.
The groovy, bass-heavy body of work is very infectious, especially with
Syd Tha Kyd at the helm bringing an undeniable swag through her
delicate vocals. It’s weird to think of them as a part of Odd Future,
especially since they have evolved so much since the collective’s early
videos burning shopping carts and brandishing fake guns. The Internet
have truly come into their own sound and aesthetic since 2011’s Feel Good.
Today, they drop a video combining the smooth, slick “Special
Affair,” the ’90s R&B-leaning “Curse”, and a short segment of the
Tyler, The Creator-assisted “Palace.” The “Special Affair” portion of
the video is a black and white basement party in slow mo with plenty of
weed, liquor, and good vibes to go around. The “Curse” section is a
hazy, revolving color one-shot with the band taking turns on each
other’s instruments giving each member a chance to step into the
forefront and deliver Syd’s lyrics. Tyler, The Creator comes on to
deliver his opening verse for a quick cameo on “Palace” before a VHS
effect kicks in and the video cuts abruptly to end.
Last month, Philly shoegazers Nothing announced the impending release of their sophomore album Tired Of Tomorrow and shared “Vertigo Flowers,” a surging triumph of a first single. Today, we get to see the song’s video. In director Don Argott’s
clip, all four members of the band stand up against a bare white wall
and attempt to lip-synch and dance while they’re being blasted with
freezing-cold paint. Below, watch the video and read some words about it
from frontman Domenic Palermo, via Noisey.
A couple of weeks ago, the giddy London pop marauders Kero Kero Bonito came out with a new single called “Lipslap.”
Today, that song gets a video, and it’s just as bright and absurd as
you’d hope a video from this group might be. In director Theo Davies’
clip, all three members of the group live in a brightly decorated
video, one that they share with many, many stuffed animals. Davies
stages the video as an early-’90s sitcom, which is a pretty ideal
context for a song like this.
Named after the Godard film Détective, globetrotting duo
DTCV channel the classic sounds of 60’s yé-yé and French pop while
adding their own post-punk influences to the mix. Their latest album Confusion Modern
is written almost entirely in French, a change in the band’s lyrical
dynamic that came about in 2015 after lead singer Lola G. listened to
Clifton Chenier’s French zydeco and the Nouvelle Vague-inspired Brian
Jonestown Massacre album Musique de Film Imaginé.
Labeling themselves “anarcho-symbolist rock,” the band uses their new
album to address Lola G.’s “anti-capitalist, neo-anarchist, radical
feminist, and pro-environmental” concerns. Director Irwin Barbé’s video
for “Capital Ennui” moves through Prague’s dilapidated areas, creating a
clear picture of the harsh reality that the band’s upcoming album will
no doubt face unflinchingly.
An unexpectedly dependable music-video subgenre: Emotionally intense
contemporary dance routines performed in front of striking scenery.
Those sculptures are just awesome.
It’s hard to come up with descriptors that haven’t been used for Portland folk singer-songwriter Johanna Warren
and her sound, but both she and her music exude a transcendence and
peace in her twenties that elude many people their entire lives. She
denies that, though, only making her seem that much more the wiser. Her
fantastic, calming nūmūn
was evoked by a spiritual awakening in Mt. Hood National Forest in
which she fasted for 3 days searching for self. nūmūn communicated that
inward exploration exquisitely sonically, but she only gave us a visual
expression through the alluring “True Colors” video.
Her rebirth also resulted in the featured healing vocal sound project
STONEHOLDER. Her latest song “Great Lake” comes with a video, and both
are more of the wisdom-seeking sound and aesthetic we have come to know
of Warren. The music is bare, with dreamy xylophone tings and elongated
ambient sounds lifting Warren’s voice into the clouds. Her lyrics mix
her vivid connection with nature and her never-ending search for
knowledge of self to translate the refreshing feeling of being emersed
underwater, alone with your own contemplations. The visuals reflect her
lyrics, depicting a ritualistic gathering of women in a creek dressed in
all white and interacting with the elements around them both giving and
receiving energy. The sound and visuals easily transport you to another
place and time that isn’t quite definable, but the soothing warmth
makes that absolutely OK.
Very busy teen Eddie Johnston makes music under the names Lontalius and Race Banyon. He’s releasing his debut album under the former, I’ll Forget 17, later this month, and today he’s shared a video for the tender single “Glow.”
Johnston plays a barista caught in a very 21st century love triangle,
which translates into a lot of exasperated looks at iPhones and moody
skipping around. It was directed by Arty Papageorgiou.
Foxing released their most recent album, Dealer,
last year and embarked on a co-headlining national tour alongside The
World Is A Beautiful Place And I Am No Longer Afraid To Die. Today the
St. Louis quintet debuted a video for their song “Night Channels,” which
chronicles a few days in the life of a struggling dancer. Scenes of her
rehearsals are intercut with footage from a Foxing barroom set.
Today, the young London singer-songwriter Låpsley releases Long Way Home, her full-length debut, and she’s also hitting us off with a video for her surging, heartbroken pop ballad “Love Is Blind.”
In the clip, Låpsley and a man face off in what appears to be an
emotional therapy session, and various other distraught faces also
appear. Meanwhile, the camera spins and the lights do strange things to
their faces. Cherise Payne directs, from Låpsley’s own concept.
NxWorries, the duo consisting of LA funk/soul merchants Anderson .Paak and Knxwledge, unleashed the oh-so-silky smooth Link Up & Suede
EP last year. It’s crazy that they found time to shoot a video, with
Paak being pretty ubiquitous since his prominent feature on Compton,
but it’s nice to see them revisit that dope project by giving “Link Up”
the visual treatment. The song is unadulterated funk and swag with
whomping bass, syncopated drums, and Knxwledge’s signature groovy sample
work. The clip embodies the smoothness of the project, with some
low-key two-stepping, a heated domino game, and fun romps in a
convenience store. Paak plays up the ’70s soul aesthetic with a
turtleneck and blazer combo, tinted sunglasses, and fedora. Knxwledge
plays the background behind a drum machine. Adult Swim’s Eric
Andre kicks off the festivities with a boozy monologue before greeting a
fist with his face. The vid is very slick, and was seemingly fun to
make.
Tyler, The Creator has shared a new video of him rapping over the beat from Kanye West’s Life Of Pablo track “Freestyle 4.” The verses on the original are kinda weak but the
beat is sick, so it’s nice to see someone actually do something
worthwhile with it. The vid, which is dubbed “What The Fuck Right Now,”
sees Tyler and friends (including A$AP Rocky) goofing around in the
studio, where there’s also inexplicably a motorcycle. It was directed by
Mikey Alfred.
“May cause extreme hot flashes and boy sweats,” reads the disclaimer at the end of PWR BTTM’s “West Texas”
video, rated Q for queer. “Some heartbreaking scenes and great American
love stories that will make you dream and escape the cold embrace of
normality.” Ben Hopkins and Liv Bruce make their way to an empty
waterpark in the desert for the video and make their mark on the
abandoned space the only way they know how.
“This video is about taking authorship of your life, even if you
can’t fully control which characters stick around,” Bruce explained in a
press release. The clip was directed by H.S. Naji, who sets up the
concept for the video as such: “I planned for the term ‘revisiting
desolation’ to be the crux of the video. The location plays as all those
broken promises, false hopes, and crushed hearts everyone experiences.
We see these two personas walk through that familiar cemetery of
attractions — and at least make due with pool paraphernalia and
glitter.”
La Sera will release their Ryan Adams-produced LP Music For Listening To Music To on Friday, and in anticipation the band debuted a video for the single “I Need An Angel.”
The clip was directed and edited by Jason Lester, who shot all of it on
Super 8 film. Check out the nostalgic, double-exposed collage of
footage below.
Annelotte de Graaf records under the name Amber Arcades and we’ve
already heard two singles off of her forthcoming debut album: “Turning Light” and “Right Now.”
She just presented us with a video for the latter, which was directed
by Jeroen van der Poel and Anna de Rijk. The clip finds two little boys
playing dress-up as small soldiers-turned-gardeners. It’s an odd
combination, but it works.
British trio Hælos make wonderfully dissonant melancholy dance music.
They use bright, bouncy, glimmering sounds that collide with evocative
lyrics that veer gloomy to create a splendid tension. Their debut album,
Full Circle, is due out later this month. It puts their
comfort with discordance on display with a euphoric mood winning out on
tracks like “Oracle,” “Pray,” and “The Sun Rising.”
Today, the band shares the track “Separate Lives” with accompanying
visuals. The song has bright, shimmery synths and intricate drum work
that oddly accentuates gloomy lyrics. The band had this to say about it:
“It’s a reflection on the moment when you are choosing between staying
or leaving and the underlying love that keeps you there. We liked that,
it was simple and human and something we could all share experience in.”
The matching clip encompasses the conflicting emotions in the music
as the band wanders through Hollywood, navigates traffic on LA freeways,
and gets glimpses of Seattle on the West Coast leg of their last tour.
The ambivalence of the song and the incongruity of the album is simply
elicited in the video as the band meanders through unfamiliar spaces
with an easy camaraderie binding them.
Vancouver’s Black Mountain will release a new album in April, their first since 2010’s Wilderness Heart. The new LP is titled IV and just last month we heard its debut single “Mothers Of The Sun,” which came accompanied by an epic video.
They’re following it up with “Florian Saucer Attack,” which is a
Siouxsie Sioux-indepted, gothic take on psych rock. It’s nice when a
song’s bizarre title aptly describes its content; the synths on this
thing sounds like ricocheting laser beams, and the Chad Van
Gaalen-animated video chronicles a day in the life of an alien.
After performing “Cold To See Clear” on Late Night With Seth Meyers on Monday, Nada Surf have released the video for another You Know Who You Are
track, “Rushing.” Shot on-site in Paris, the clip narrates the path of
two people whose spontaneous affections remind viewers of the
profundities and excitement to be found throughout life’s small moments.
Nada Surf frontman Matthew Caws is there to witness the romance in
bloom. Here’s Caws with some background on the video:
i’ve known sarah and emilie barbault for a long time. i
did the music for two short films of theirs, a day of lucidity and
pleurer des larmes d’enfance. they shot the video for the minor alps
song “waiting for you.” we’d wanted to make another video together for a
long time. the song is about the transporting feeling of new love. i
wrote it with dan wilson. we were writing together to see what it would
be like, not for nada surf necessarily. it was a really wonderful
experience. he has such a great musical and lyrical mind. i was
originally hoping that this song would be sung by a woman because while
there is (more and more) pressure on men to be attractive, there is
still clearly more on women, and this song touches on body-consciousness
in the chorus, how the right person can make you forget issues of
appearance, and more holistically can pull your mind up out of your body
and into a plane of one-ness, of spirit. there’s a line about watching
the human river go by, when you’re not participating or can’t find your
way in.
we had a great day taking the subway all over paris and shooting
wherever felt good. it was fun to play for the commuters but i’m sure
they were wondering why i wasn’t singing a famous song.
This is your brain on drugs! The video for Palehound’s “Molly” — off Ellen Kempner’s excellent Dry Food debut LP from last year — takes that age-old scare tactic and infamous PSA
quite literally. It stars a cute little dude named EggGuy that gets
fried up and served on a sandwich. After being eaten, he has some weird
hallucinogenic effects on the consumer, which mostly involve deep
thoughts about the circle of life and a lot of freaky moving images.
Sounds like any trip ever! “EggGuy was concocted during a late morning
brunch mishap,” co-directors Lara Jean Gallagher and Brian Kinkley explain. “We wanted to explore the frailty of life, what it means to
have consciousness, and how much we could care about a pair of eyeballs.
‘Molly’ has just the right amount of weird sweetness to make this all
seem really fun.”
