The Black Belles are the latest band to be signed to Jack White’s Third Man Records, and with a back catalogue as sprawlingly strong as his, you won’t be surprised to hear they sound pretty good. Directed by Mr.White himself, Shelby, Olivia, Ruby and Erin look as monochrome as anticipated and resonate the necessary amount of electricity. I’m sure we’ll be hearing more from them in the not too distant future.
Err, where has Jenny Lewis been for the past few years? She could have been running some sort of underground, political guerilla group, or designing jewellery, or maybe she was just locked in a cupboard. What I’m getting at is that it just doesn’t matter in the slightest – because she’s back with a totally killer video that she’s directed, and we all know that 99.9% of the time a brilliant, timely music video is the perfect solution to a difficult comeback.
If you’re working on your summer bod right now then you can either look away or take some inspiration from the guys in this music video. Some people are into the whole muscle thing, but I can tell you now that for me this is way more terrifying than it is a turn-on, I mean look at them! The shoulders of these muscle-men are the width of a small truck and their waists are teeny tiny, giving them a strange Donkey Kong look about them. Odd, but intriguing.
The description of this video reads: “A dancing egg wreaks havoc when people can’t take their eyes off him.” I mean as far as concepts go, that’s pretty strong. Basically a guy in an egg costume (note to self: purchase an egg costume) goes around distracting people as they get on with their day. It was created by directorial duo A Very Successful Business quite literally for a laugh. “We created it just for the fun of making it, and to add a bit of surreal silliness back into the world,” co-founder Dulcie told us. Sure, this isn’t a video that’s going to go down in the top ten music videos of all time lists, but it made every single person in the It’s Nice That office laugh, and surely that counts for something. Well done, egg-lads!
There are some people in the world who just ooze coolness and FKA twigs is one of them, who knew Gloucstershire was able to produce such fine specimens of slick elegance?
Say what you like about music videos, for me the most successful have to be two things: simple and cool. Sound easy? It’s not, but when you think of any fantastic music video that’s stuck in your mind for years afterwards, it’s usually both those things combined seamlessly to create something magic (see Michel Gondry’s famous Chemical Brothers video). Back in the present day, this video for Uumellmahaye (gesundheit!) by Lithuanian artist Manfredas ticks the boxes perfectly. Director Ruta Kiskyte assembled some enormous inflatable letters in a disused plaster dump in the middle of Lithuania and got a guy to take his clothes off. The question is, is the naked man going to pop the smoke-filled letters we see before us? Wait, what’s that in his hand? Is he? He’s not…Oh yes, he’s going to bloody pop the letters! Perfect.
I love how OK GO just drop a sensational new music video every now and again like it’s no big deal. If you haven’t seen their insane back catalogue of music videos so far (come on, keep up) then go to YouTube and watch so you don’t sound like a total noob when everyone’s talking about this in about there hours time. If you have then check out this brand new video created by Special Guest and directed by Aaron Duffy, Damian Kulash Jr. and Bob Partington.
I’m going to admit to a certain bias towards Nicos Livesey’s latest animation before I say anything more about it. As a teenager every bag and garment I owned was plastered with patches that I’d picked up in Camden – or at a horrible little shop in my hometown called Tiger Lily – paying homage to any number of death metal bands I was obsessing over at the time (and some embarrassingly poor nu-metal ones too). I couldn’t get enough of them. But in spite of this penchant for embroidered badges I’m going to go out on a limb and say that Tharsis Sleeps will appeal even to those who don’t like to wear their bands on their sleeves.
Olimpia Zagnoli is an illustrator we’re fond of. Her application of bold shapes and bright colours to elucidate the subtlest of social observations is right up our street, and it turns out to be exactly the kind of work which translates easily to public places, as she proved last year witht his cool project. So what happens then when an illustrator this talented turns her hand to art direction, and applies the same rules to moving picture?
Here’s an exclusive for all you lucky lunchtime lurkers, the premiere of We Were Evergreen’s brand new video Belong is happening right here, right now. Rather than a smörgåsbord of poignant close-ups and intricate instruments, We Were Evergreen has kicked it up a notch by joining forces with the ever brilliant, Kate Moross for the visuals.
Basement Jaxx are currently teetering on the cusp of releasing the first new music that they’ve made in absolutely ages, and I’m sure it won’t dampen anybody’s excitement to know that the visual accompaniment to their new song Unicorn does indeed feature a unicorn. It’s one that’s been magicked up by video artist and animator Tomek Ducki, who’s responsible for no small number of mind-bogglingly good animated shorts. This one is a true tribute to the 80s soulful disco culture that Basement Jaxx value so highly, with flashing wormy creatures, dancing under spotlights, and unicorn horns with minds of their own running riot all over the place. I think you have to see it to believe it.
Four years ago designer and photographer Anna Brooks was one of our Graduates class of 2010, wowing us in particular with her twist on the familiar class portrait. It seems apt that just as we launch this year’s graduate scheme we find out there’s a new string to her bow. In this music video for Isabel Broox’ single Sleep we follow a couple through the course of a day – so far so standard.
Metronomy frequently astound us when it comes to producing videos and album artwork – it was only a heartbeat ago that they had Michel Gondry direct this absolute stonker of an audio-visual offering – so we probably shouldn’t be surprised that their latest one is so good, but we are anyway. Directed by Daniel Brereton and animated by Matt Lloyd, the video for Reservoir uses felt-tip animation in what might be the best way we’ve ever seen. Watch out for the band’s voiceover towards the end and just see if you aren’t utterly won over. Can’t wait to watch this one in all its analogue, homemade glory on an actual TV screen, speakers blaring.
It’s always a joy to hear from filmmaker, photographer and long-time friend of the site Thomas Brown, especially when he comes bearing glad tidings of a new project. This time he’s created the video for Alex Banks’ new single All You Could Do, alongside set designers Lightning and Kinglyface, and their visual treatment fits the urgent, slightly unnerving music perfectly. There’s lots of imagery that sears itself onto the brain and Thomas has the confidence to disorientate the viewer from start to finish. Typically he wears his talents lightly; so while on the one hand he describes the work as “an embodiment and exploration of energy and light,” in the same breath he admits it’s “bonkers…It involves a Burroughs-esque dream machine, truly trippy visuals and Brighton going apeshit.” He’s not wrong.
