Laura Stevenson – “State” (Official Video)

 Laura Stevenson is going the self-titled route for her sixth full-length album, a move that somehow feels appropriate for the singer-songwriter, who is perpetually underrated and ahead of the curve, as we explored when she released her last album The Big Freeze in 2019. Stevenson wrote the album while she was pregnant with her first child. It was produced by John Angnello and features longtime collaborator Jeff Rosenstock.

Laura Stevenson is being introduced with “State,” a glowering track that alternates between hushed intimacy and furious bashing. “I’m in a state, but I stay polite,” Stevenson sings on it. “It keeps me alive/ It’s easier, right?”

“Someone I love was hurt and almost killed by another person and I was so absolutely consumed with this level of rage that I had never known before and it was really powerful and frightening but somehow freeing when I was willing to just let it wash over me,” Stevenson said of the track in a statement.

Dance Vlad Dance! 'Putin' strips off suit & does Russian folk dance in Kremlin

Whatever your political persuasion, one thing’s undeniable: the world’s ‘most powerful man’ has captured the popular imagination. From iPhones, art shows, boutique shirts and buff dancing on film, Vladimir Putin is a bona fide pop culture phenomenon.

Mt. Wolf - “Midnight Shallows” Video

London-based in/out (aka Jean-Philippe Blunt & Thom Humphreys) explore the world of chronophotography and Étienne-Jules Marey in this music video for Mt. Wolf’s Midnight Shallows. I love the video’s restraint and balance, lovingly reveling in each unique motion. The later shots that composite the dancer and echoed ribbon are particularly lovely.

For more chronophotography love, check out Norman Maclaren’s Pas de deux, Michael Langan’s Choros and Mass Market’s Nike “Human Chain”. Or roll your own in processing.

Lulu James - “Sweetest Thing” (Official Video)

Lulu James has released a video for her most recent single “Sweetest Thing.” Like her clips for “Closer” and “Step By Step” before this, the video features James in different avant garde costuming, solo-dancing throughout.

Atoms For Peace - "Ingenue" (Watch Thom Yorke Dance)

Ready your .gif-makers: Thom Yorke dances once again in the video for Atoms for Peace's "Ingenue", taken from the supergroup's debut album, Amok. Yorke does a wild, conceptual routine with contemporary dancer Fukiko Takase.

 It was directed and choreographed by the same team as Radiohead's "Lotus Flower", Garth Jennings (who as part of Hammer & Tongs directed Blur's "Coffee and TV" clip, among other iconic videos), and choreographed by Wayne McGregor.

CYMBALS - 'The Natural World' (Official Video)

The new single from CYMBALS, featuring dancer/choreographer Jaime Flor.

"I knew Jaime while growing up (he was my parent's lodger in Paris). He was selected by a French dance school to come and train in contemporary dance and has since had a career as a dancer in Paris. I saw him dance a few times back then, and you could tell he had something unique. Much later, I had the crazy idea of having him dance to one of our songs, and I'm a bit overwhelmed that we actually managed to make it all happen, and by the end result. We talked through the lyrics and had long conversations about what they might mean, and Jaime built up the choreography closely inspired by the song. Having left Paris a while ago, it felt like a reconnection with a former part of myself, shouting through the lyrics in French around East London with my old friend." - Jack Cleverly (CYMBALS singer/guitarist)

Credits
Choreography/dancing - Jaime Flor
Director - Miles Langley
Assistant director - Philippa Johnson
Executive producer - Ollie Evans
Original concept - CYMBALS
D.O.P. - Jamie Durand
Stylist - Heather Falconer
2nd camera - Josh Brooks
Colourist - Jack McGinty
Single edit - Chris Bellam

Kazaky - "Last Night" Video

Kazaky - Last Night (Director: YevgeniyTimokhin)

Opossom - "Girl"

The New Zealand band get an elaborately choreographed music video.

Sébastien Tellier - "Russian Attractions"

Watch Sébastien Tellier's new video for "Russian Attractions" off of 'My God is Blue,' produced by VICE with the help of Air (Drinkair.com).

We took the idea of falling in love with a stranger, and considered the fact that love itself is a stranger. There's a reason we use the word "fall" when referring to love. Because when its pull becomes too strong to resist, you lose your balance and what happens next is an unknown beyond our control. Although scary, the unknown is also undeniably attractive.

Director: Meredith Danluck Director of Photography: Jake Burghart Executive Producer: Thobey Campion Producer: David Laven Associate Producer: Chloe Campion Production Designer: James Maher Choreography: Mesha Kussman Gaffer: Greg LeFevre Dancers: The Aqualillies

Beyoncé - Dance For You

Beyoncé’s video for the new song “Dance For You” is made up to look like an old film noir, but all those genre touchpoints are really just distractions. The video, it turns out, is really just five minutes of Beyoncé grinding, and you already know whether that’s something you want to watch. This much, however, is indisputable: Beyoncé is very good at grinding. And, perhaps more debatably, she also deserves some credit for refusing to hide her pregnancy while, at the same time, being sexy as fuck in an extremely public way. Beyoncé herself co-directs alongside her “Party” co-director Alan Ferguson.

Omaha Bitch – “Orgasmic Troopers”

The video for “Orgasmic Troopers” from Omaha Bitch, circa 2008.

Kele ft. Lucy Taylor - What Did I Do

DIRECTOR: Nova Dando
D.O.P: Sam Goldie
PRODUCER: Elliot Tagg
EDITOR: James Wright
STYLIST: Nadine Artois

The Young Professionals (TYP) - 20 Seconds

The Young Professionals (TYP) - 20 Seconds (Director: Omer Tobi)

Music By: Ivri Lider & Yonatan Goldstein

When Saints Go Machine – “Kelly”

You’ve heard Denmark quartet When Saints Go Machine breakthrough “Kelly” and now comes the accompanying clip directed by Maj Rafferty. Like the song, the video is about young love. Between ballerinas! There’s sensual apple-eating! It’s mad romantic.

100 Years of East London Style

This video is a fast-moving historical fashion show with dancing! The Viral Factory produced it for the grand opening of Westfield Stratford City on September 13th, which I believe is a shopping center, although it’s kind of hard to tell from the website. Music by Tristin Norwell. Link

Slow Club - Two Cousins

The brilliant video for the new single - Two Cousins - taken from their forthcoming new album, out in September.

Directed by Lucy Needs.

Google - Martha Graham

Ryan Woodward, of Thought of You fame, creates a Martha Graham Google Doodle. Interesting post at Bubbling Thoughts with javascript/CSS sprite and other recent Doodle experiments.

Panic! At The Disco: Ready To Go

Panic! At The Disco's music video for 'Ready To Go (Get Me Out Of My Mind)' from the album, Vices & Virtues

Wild Beasts - Albatross

"Albatross", a cut from UK indie outfit Wild Beasts' forthcoming LP Smother, is a slowly unfurling ballad and its corresponding clip is similarly dreamy and disjointed. In the video directed by Dave Ma, a woman engages in some well-choreographed movements around a spare, eerie set, as the footage of her moving is interspersed with clips of IV bags filled with black liquid, as well as huge fossilized bugs. There's a second or two near the end that features bare feet walking on top of a line of said dead bugs-- if you are into that, please keep it to yourself.

We are thrilled to unveil the new video for Wild Beasts' forthcoming single, Albatross, from their forthcoming album Smother.

Filmed in London by the distinctive Dave Ma, the video is a beautiful, dreamlike sequence of images featuring the band along side a female dancer, capturing the high abstraction and intensity of the song. The video emits a sense of reflection about loss and an underlying hope of being free.

Stanton Warriors – “Turn Me Up Some”

“Turn Me Up Some”’s video is two weeks old, but it’s worth including. Nate appreciated the frenetic editing, I appreciated the frenetic dancing. Directing group Messrs use smart cuts to show the similarities between dancers’ very different styles, making their movements flow each other’s seamlessly.