Natalie Prass - “Bird Of Prey” (Official Video)

Last time Natalie Prass released a video, it was the face-morphing “Why Don’t You Believe In Me,” a somewhat chilling visual representation of the way the doubts of others can undermine our confidence. “Bird Of Prey” couches similarly dark themes in Prass’ impossibly sweet voice and heaps of elegant string work, but the video is light as can be. It’s almost childish with its bright, primary colors and carefree spirit, even as Prass sings about a lover who functioned like a predator. The clip was was directed by Malia James of the Dum Dum Girls.

Death Cab For Cutie - “The Ghosts Of Beverly Drive” (Official Video)

We premiered “The Ghosts Of Beverly Drive” along with an extensive cover story on Death Cab For Cutie back in March when the song came out. Now the group have shared a video to accompany the track off their new album Kintsugi. Director Robert Hales’ black and white clip is a fairly literal interpretation of the song’s subject matter, as Gibbard guides a sight-seeing bus full of tourists through one of L.A.’s ubiquitous star watching tours. It’s hard not to imagine Gibbard is thinking of his ex-wife, actress/musician Zooey Deschanel, while he gazes moodily at the emblems of Hollywood.

Gaspar Claus - “Birth & Death Of A.” (Feat. Sufjan Stevens, Pedro Soler, The National’s Bryce Dessner, & More)

In 2012, the French cellist Gaspar Claus asked 11 musicians to partake in a one-time-only collaborative performance piece that took place over the course of a night at Littlefield in Brooklyn. Claus’ invitation list included Sufjan Stevens, Pedro Soler, Bryce Dessner, Jessie Stein (of The Luyas), David Moore (of Bing & Ruth), Rémi Alexadre (of Sys Matters and Shorebilly), Ben Greenberg (of the Zs and the Men), Jessica Larrabee & Andy LaPlant (of She Keeps Bees), Emil Bognar-Nasdor (of Dawn Of Humans), Mauro Remiddi (of Porcelain Raft), and Claus’ own sister, Clara who performed alongside Dessner. The 11 musicians performed 11 songs, and the result of the project is One Night Stand, an LP made available through the French crowdsourcing site Microcultures. Derrick Belcham of the French media house La Blogothèque filmed the 70-minute performance and made short live videos of each song. Today, we’re premiering the video for the droning, nine-minute composition “Birth & Death Of A.” Each musician gets a short cameo in the video (you can spot Stevens about midway through), but the ocean of sound that they create together is all dependent on Claus’ tightly-wound, enchanting performance.

Solvey - “The Weight” (Official Video)

Following the premiere of Jessica Zambri’s song “Solvey” — also her project moniker and upcoming album title — the New York native premieres her bass guitar heavy video for “The Weight.” Zambri has gone from experimenting with dark, electronic pop in her former band with her sister to an indie rock record with fuzzy guitar riffs and personal lyrics that showed an inner exploration. In director Noel Heroux’s video, Zambri stares emotionless as she strums her bass on a dark video set. Flashing images reflect off her body as she mouths screaming motions to the chorus: “Feel the weight change, feel it shaping.” It’s Zambri at her most stripped-down and raw, exposing it all.

Shannon And The Clams - “Corvette” (Official Video)

Shannon Shaw has a hell of a voice. She effortlessly toggles from a croon to a purr to a rumble, all the while retaining the kind of magnetic charisma that silences rooms. Her band, the 1950s-flavored Oakland trio Shannon And The Clams, just announced their fourth LP Gone By The Dawn, which will be out this fall. “It’s not dark, but it’s kind of a devastated album,” Shaw told The Daily Californian. “Cody [Blanchard, guitarist] and I both ended up going through these really sad breakups right around the same time, so that’s absolutely reflected in the work.”

That’s certainly true of first single “Corvette.” The song is probably the highest-fi they’ve ever sounded, with that voice resting comfortably in the center of a spacious arrangement of trudging bass and twangily mournful guitar, and the lyrics manage to simultaneously convey a very specific heartbreak and puncture the broader fantasy of the sunglasses-wearing, fast car-driving cool guy. The Loren Risker-directed video perfectly matches that idea, alternating between shots of the band performing in black-and-white and a brightly colored, obviously green-screened romantic ride in the titular Corvette. By the end, of course, the retro hunk boyfriend is revealed as a fake, a literal leather-clad Ken doll.

Father John Misty - “I Love You, Honeybear” Video (Feat. Brett Gelman)

Father John Misty’s sophomore album I Love You, Honeybear is one of the best LPs we’ve heard this year, and his new video for the album’s title track is a heavy and bracing piece of work, one worthy of the album. Josh Tillman, Father John Misty’s alter-ego, co-wrote the video with his wife Emma Tillman, and he co-directed it with old collaborator Grant James. The video stars Brett Gelman (the comedian who played a naked hippie in the Mad Men series finale) and Susan Traylor (an actress who recently appeared in Greenberg) as drunk, high emergency medical technicians who try to save Josh and Emma Tillman from a gas leak. It’s a whole lot to deal with early on a Monday morning.

Watch Liam Gallagher & Roger Daltrey Sing The Who’s “My Generation” On TFI Friday Special

Last night, Liam Gallagher and Roger Daltrey led a one-off supergroup performance of the Who’s “My Generation” on British TV show TFI Friday, which revived for a two-hour special to celebrate its 20th anniversary. The group was rounded out by the Lightning Seeds’ Ian Broudie and former Oasis members Paul “Bonehead” Arthurs and Zak Starkey (who has also played with the Who). Blur also showed up to play “Coffee And TV,” and you can watch both performances below.

Veruca Salt - “Laughing In The Sugar Bowl” (Official Video)

Veruca Salt will release their crowdfunded original lineup reunion album, Ghost Notes, next month, and they’ve just shared a video for the lead single “Laughing In The Sugar Bowl,” which sees the band rocking out in an antiques store while pieces of paper and some arts-and-crafts ephemera burns up around them. Nina Gordon and Louise Post are wearing shirts that read “liar” and “poet.” The clip was directed by Tim Rutilli.

Little Wings - “Light Brang” (Official Video)

On his absurdly great new Little Wings album Explains, Kyle Field relishes in hard-earned ambiguity. Is his howling serious? Is his dancing ironic? How to reconcile the gorgeous, orchestrated folk of the songs with filtered in bits of white noise and all the lyrical flotsam? In the video for “Light Brang,” Field answers none of these questions, opting instead to dance around with sparklers on the Japanese island of Miyazaki. That the video was shot in the dark is another layer of irony; Miyazaki is known for its gorgeous scenery, and we see none of it. Never change, Little Wings.

Watch Bill Murray & Zooey Deschanel In The Trailer For Music Biz Comedy Rock The Kasbah

Thanks to films like Lost In Translation and pretty much every Wes Anderson movie ever, Bill Murray has made a bit of a second career for himself playing washed-up, apathetic old men. In Barry Levinson’s new music biz comedy Rock The Kasbah, well, he’s still doing that, but in a more overtly comic manner. Murray stars as an aging tour manager who takes his last remaining client (Zooey Deschanel) on a USO trip to Afghanistan, where Deschanel’s character promptly robs him and leaves him stranded without a wallet or passport. Hijinks ensue, of course, and he eventually meets up with and agrees to manage a young Afghan girl on her way to Kabul for an American Idol-esque singing competition. Bruce Willis, Kate Hudson, Danny McBride, and Scott Caan also star. You can watch the movie’s first trailer — soundtracked by David Bowie’s “Rebel Rebel,” Harry Nilsson’s “Jump Into The Fire,” and Bill Murray singing a spirited if not particularly tuneful rendition of “Smoke On The Water” — below.

Open Mike Eagle - “Ziggy Starfish (Anti-Anxiety Raps)” Video (Feat. Hannibal Buress)

Open Mike Eagle wanders through a seemingly typical club scene in his new video for the Gold Panda-produced “Ziggy Starfish (Anti-Anxiety Raps).” The video follow the lustful encounter of two intoxicated clubbers. It all appears pretty serious until you notice special appearances by Hannibal Buress, Jean Grae, Quelle Chris, and MC Frontalot throughout the video. As the lovers reach for their first embrace, Open Mike Eagle stares directly at them with a blank face. When the couple is feuding, clubbers are blowing bubbles with a dazed Buress watching the bubbles awe. It’s ostensibly a story about star-crossed lovers, but you might not notice due to all these hilarious cameos. Watch director Kris Merc’s video.

Mew - “The Night Believer” (Official Video)

Back in spring, Danish prog overlords Mew returned after a six-year silence with +-, a new LP that won Album Of The Week props from us. They’ve already made videos for the album tracks “Satellites” and “Water Slides,” and now they’ve come up with a novel way to make a clip for the surging, expansive track “The Night Believer.” In this one, Mew got help from 1,000 different fans from 65 different countries, and all of them show up onscreen lip-syncing the song at one point or another. Director William Reynish plunges the band members and the fans into a CGI world that recalls Carl Sagan’s Cosmos and early virtual reality, and most of the fans only appear onscreen for a few nanoseconds. If you recorded a part for this video, you better be quick with the pause button if you want to see yourself.

Chimurenga Renaissance - “Pop Killer” (Official Video)

Chimurenga Renaissance — the duo of Shabazz Palaces’ Tendai “Baba” Maraire and rapper Hussein Kalonji — explore the Great Zimbabwe ruins in their video for “Pop Killer,” off their Defenders Of The Crusades EP. In the clip, the Zimbabwe-centered hip-hop duo travel to the ancient city that was the capital of the Kingdom of Zimbabwe; Maraire slowly walks through the hills of stone steps and houses, as the sky turns to dusk. Traditional African instruments are played throughout the video, accompanied by dancers at the top of a hill, with the upcoming sunset serving as a backdrop. Maraire carefully examines his surroundings with each step and turn until he reaches the top, where he poses in a prayer position, and the camera pans out to reveal his white studded outfit has transformed into a colorful African garment. The politically charged song, focusing on cultural exploration and commercialism, shows that connecting to your past can create a new path for the future.

Neil Young + Promise Of The Real - “Wolf Moon” (Official Video)

Neil Young and the band Promise Of The Real will release their collaborative album, The Monsanto Years, at the end of this month, and we’ve already heard a live rendition of the title track and seen the video for “A Rock Star Bucks A Coffee Shop.” Now, Young has debuted another new song off the album, “Wolf Moon,” in the form of a video. The song’s been played live multiple times before, and this visual piece is essentially just footage of Young and Promise Of The Real performing indoors with celestial projections behind them.

Kacey Musgraves - “Biscuits” (Official Video)

Same Trailer, Different Park, the 2013 album from the country singer Kacey Musgraves, was one of the breeziest and smartest and most charming mainstream country records I’ve heard in years. Later this month, she’ll follow it up with a new one called Pageant Material, and today she’s unveiled the video for its exceedingly amiable first single “Biscuits.” The clip is a bright, silly tribute to old-timey variety shows, and she says that she wanted it to look like “Hee-Haw meets Pee Wee’s Playhouse meets Wes Anderson.” If you’re not enraged with Stereogum for posting a pop-country video

Saul Williams - “Burundi” (Feat. Warpaint’s Emily Kokal) Video

Saul Williams is a musician who has done everything from work with Trent Reznor to star as Tupac Shakur on Broadway. Listening to “Burundi,” it will come as no surprise that he’s also an incredible slam poet. He lists Beyoncé, Fredo Santana, and Haitian field recordings as his inspirations, and those disparate influences are completely present on the track. “Burundi” is the lead single off his sixth album MartyrLoserKing and today he’s doubled down on the ferocious song by releasing an urgent, roiling video for it. All throughout you can hear the Emily Kokal of Warpaint’s ghostly, insistent harmonies accompanying his viciously spat lyrics, while computer code, urban layouts and video footage of various political uprisings flash behind and around him. This is protest in motion, a powerful statement from an artist who refuses to back down or be labeled a victim. He turns anger into fuel, emotions combusting in aggressive flashes that demands attention. It was directed by Kivu Ruhorahoza and the graphics are by Antonio Ribeiro.

The Staves - “Teeth White” (Official Video)

If I’m properly understanding the arc of the Staves’ recent you-must-hear-this masterpiece If I Was — and if there is supposed to be an arc at all — the punchy yet melancholy “Teeth White” is the point when, having licked her wounds after a bad breakup, our protagonist steels herself to go back on the town and mix it up again: “I’ve got my teeth white/ And my jeans tight.” In an email to their mailing list, they explained, “It’s is a song about feeling like no matter what you do, it’s never good enough. It’s really a song about the frustration of being held back and not being free.” So make of that what you will.

The song now has a video, which features the Stavely-Turner sisters in two scenarios: joyfully performing to an empty Paris barroom and somewhat awkwardly rocking out in that same barroom while everyone around ignores them. Again, I’m not 100 percent sure that is what’s going on here — the clip was filmed by the team from La Blogothèque, makers of the exquisite Take Away Shows series, so it may just be designed as a verite performance video — but I am 100 percent sure this song gets stuck in my head every day and that it’s welcome to do so for the foreseeable future. 

Vic Mensa - “U Mad” (Feat. Kanye West) Video

Vic Mensa and Kanye West’s massively brassy “U Mad” now has a video directed by the great Grant Singer (and good for him — back in January, Kanye beat out Singer for the top spot in our 5 Best Videos Of The Week rankings, and now the two are working together). The ominous track’s visuals feature both rappers rocking a crowd under some evocative lighting — it’s dark and strikingly beautiful. There’s also Mensa strapped into a straightjacket, and some riot police show up at the end to shut things down in violent fashion.