9/12/2013

Future – “Honest” (Official Video)



Future will release his sophomore full-length Honest in November and has now unleashed the visuals for its eponymous lead single. The video features multiple layers of opulence, from his white piano to vintage cameras all in a castle-like setting. His styling is also incredible — the oxblood suit! The leather pants! I’m not even mad he enlisted someone other than Ciara to play his leading lady, as the role is given to former Destiny’s Child member LeToya Luckett.

Dutch Uncles – “Nometo” Video



UK indie-poppers Dutch Uncles have delivered a couple of cool videos this year, especially their more-than-delightful one for “Flexxin.” Now they’ve released a collage clip for track “Nometo”

Father John Misty – “I’m Writing A Novel” (Official Video)



“I’m Writing A Novel,” off of Father John Misty’s recent album Fear Fun, was always a charming track and now there’s a video that matches it. Following Josh Tillman as he goes about his day — hanging out in his apartment, playing shows, shooting guns, etc. — it features little asides from him that are always pretty golden. Not much goes on, but that’s not really a complaint when he can make doing nothing much so entertaining.

9/11/2013

Arcade Fire – “Reflektor” (Official Video)



Arcade Fire’s hotly anticipated “Reflektor” video, directed by Anton Corbijn, is finally here and despite being a little jaded from the tornado of hype that’s gone on today, you may find it pretty damn incredible. The whole thing is so big, so weird, so overwhelmingly stylish, and beautiful, not to mention it’s all shot in that stark black and white that made Corbijn iconic. It’s the sort of thing that already tops every other music video this week by the two minute mark, and that’s not even the halfway point.

Trentemøller – “Candy Tongue” (feat. Marie Fisker) (Official Video) (NSFW)



Trentemøller, who was recently named one of TIME’s 7 Scandinavian Bands You Should Listen To Now, is gearing up to release brand new album Lost at the end of the month. Among many collaborations on the record, including guest appearances from Blonde Redhead, Low, the Raveonettes, Lower Dens, and Jonny Pierce of the Drums, is “Candy Tongue,” a haunting twinkler featuring Danish singer Marie Fisker. Its accompanying video, directed by Thomas Jessen, showcases an array of naked bodies, young and old, morphing into each other in wisps of smoke.

Jonathan Rado - "Faces" (Official Music Video)



The music video for Foxygen-member Jonathan Rado’s “Faces” may start out like an intense bare-knuckle boxing match, but quickly becomes a far more intense dance-off. The video, directed by Austin Kearns, keeps bouncing back and forth between these vibes and it’s pretty fun to try and keep up. Kearns shoots it in an extremely narrow aspect ratio which only makes it all the more intense — and of course right when you think you’re done, it throws in one of the most WTF-worthy endings you could imagine.

Julia Holter - This Is A True Heart (Official Video)



After the theatrical “In The Green Wild” music video, Julia Holter has now released a very different sort of video for “This Is A True Heart.” Here Holter stars as a spy of some sort, doing a job involving a dead body, leaked information, and a very important flash drive. The entire Eugene Kotlyarenko directed video is purposely vague and played by the actors with the utmost noir-seriousness, which ends up being pretty funny. It just sends itself up more and more until a moment involving a saxophone player that is to ridiculous to ruin here. The reason why this all works though is because Kotlyarenko crafts the video exquisitely, every shot, light, and cut is perfect. It becomes something that makes you laugh while you marvel at it.

Obits – “Spun Out” (Official Video)


Obits have delivered a video for Bed & Bugs track “Spun Out.” What seems like a straight-forward performance clip turns into something trash-filled and slightly weird.

Waxahatchee – “Misery Over Dispute” (Official Video)


Katie Crutchfield, bka Waxahatchee, has released a video for her Cerulean Salt track “Misery Over Dispute.” The black-and-white clip features Crutchfield tap-dancing, so now we know not only can shred on the guitar and write songs that can kick you in the gut, but she can seriously cut a rug, too.

MØ – “XXX 88″


The icy Danish pop singer MØ appeared on our radar earlier this year with “Glass,” but she jumped up another level with the fearsome Diplo-produced banger “XXX 88.” And someone spent some serious money on the song’s just-released video, which stars MØ as a suburban teenager who imagines herself as some sort of world-traveling glam-pop superhero. Tim Erem directs, and Diplo shows up in oiled-up naked-except-for-tightie-whities cameo form.

Miley Cyrus - "Wrecking Ball" (Official Video)



Music video by Miley Cyrus performing Wrecking Ball. (C) 2013 RCA Records, a division of Sony Music Entertainment

Eminem – “Berzerk” (Official Video) (Explicit)



Eminem’s video for his aggro back-to-basics single “Berzerk” just hit the internet, and it’s as cartoonishly ugly as every Eminem video ever. It’s also, like every Eminem video ever, probably more fun than it should be. It mostly revolves around Em in a room with a gigantic boom box, and it also has copious use of fisheye lens, a visual quote of the Beastie Boys’ “So What Cha Want” video, and Rick Rubin pretending to rap. Kendrick Lamar, Kid Rock, Yelawolf, and Slaughterhouse also make appearances.

Watch “The Reflektors” Video From Creators Project



Making up for all of the subtlety and down-to-earth directness, Arcade Fire are going hard now with all of the promotions for their new album. This morning we got an ambitious new music video, and now there’s a teaser from the Creators Project for something else related to the new music. Featuring people walking through crowds in full fabric body suits (even faces are covered) and reflective pieces all over them with boom boxes playing music. Occasionally there are glances of the “Reflektor” symbol we’ve been seeing all over the internet. Perhaps this will all make more sense at 9PM tonight, when the band is planning to release Anton Corbijn’s video for the single.

Arcade Fire – “Reflektor” Interactive Video


Arcade Fire, trailblazers of the interactive video, have released one for “Reflektor.” It’s a virtual projection by Vincent Morisset and to watch, you need Google Chrome and either a mouse or webcam and a smartphone or tablet. Filmed in Jacmel, Haiti, “the story follows a young woman who travels between her world and our own.” Check it out here or watch a screengrab of the action.

9/09/2013

Franz Ferdinand – “Evil Eye” (Official Video) (NSFW)



Franz Ferdinand’s gruesome, genuinely disgusting video for the Right Thoughts, Right Words, Right Actions song “Evil Eye” feels like what might happen if someone made a supercut of all the nastiest moments from Lucio Fulci’s ’70s cheapo Italian horror movies. The grainy video is all disconnected images that seem engineered to turn your stomach: Eyeballs floating in swimming pools, loving closeups of limb-hackings, entrails spilling on sidewalks. Also, frontman Alex Kapranos has apparently grown a Vincent Price mustache for the occasion, which is a nice touch. The whole thing is presented with a fair amount of morbid humor, and it’s pretty fine, but don’t do like me and click play immediately post-breakfast. The veteran music-video director Diane Martel — who, thanks to her videos for “Blurred Lines” and “We Can’t Stop,” is having a titanic year (and who also did one of history’s greatest music videos) — is the party responsible.

Katy Perry – “Roar” (Official Video)



Katy Perry – “Roar” (Dir. Grady Hall & Mark Kudsi)

If only the ending to Lost had been this satisfying. (I’m worried, however, that I’m getting an inaccurate image of Nokia smartphones’ durability and battery life.)

The Avalanches – “Stalking To A Stranger (Planets Collide Remix)” Video



The Avalanches don’t exactly believe in drowning us in new music. It’s been 13 years, and we’re still waiting for them to follow up Since I Left You. But the DJ collective does have something new for us: An eight-minute disco-damaged remix of “Talking To A Stranger,” a 1982 postpunk freakout by the Aussie band Hunters & Collectors. The Avalanches’ version of the track, “Stalking To A Stranger (Planets Collide Remix),” has its own video, which essentially serves as a remix of the original hallucinatory video. The remix will appear on the compilation Crucible: The Songs Of Hunters & Collectors.

Batwings Catwings – “September”



The energetic, guitar pop on Batwings Catwings’ Woah EP was about nostalgia without depending on nostalgia musically, which is tougher than it sounds. They’ve now released a video for their excellent song “September” which has a very back-to-school vibe. It opens with a young girl waking up and going through the routine of getting ready, with lingering shots of friendship bracelets and cigar-box pencil cases. And, of course, the most important part: playing with your cat before you take off. Nothing much happens, and it’s over pretty quick — but that’s kind of how September is when you’re going back to school and that’s a major reason why the video is so heartwarming. In the words of BWCW drummer Clay Johnson:
It’s loosely about the first day of school and actually not going ‘we should never move faster than nature’ but hanging with a cat named Diego instead. The meaning is up to the eye of the beholder though of course.
Notice the name on the friendship bracelet…