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.
While we wait to take our turn to become a sort of strangely sanctioned voyeur as PJ Harvey records her ninth album, thinking about what’s ahead feels peculiar. Essentially, we’re going to see PJ (Polly Jean) Harvey, her band, producers Flood and John Parish, a photographer and two engineers making an album in a Something & Son-designed box, formed of glass that allows visitors to see in, while the musicians can’t see out.
The more we see of FKA Twigs, the more it becomes apparent that there’s no end to what she can do. She has a voice like nothing we’ve ever heard before, she dances like an extra-terrestrial placed on this earth solely to do so, and she directs all of her own music videos, because her creative vision for the visuals which accompany her music is such that nobody else could quite nail it. So the word talented doesn’t really cover it.
There are so few artists that manage to move into the higher echelons of householdnamery and still feel totally, grimily relevent to us every day. Despite David Shrigley’s 2012 Hayward Retrospective, his massive thumbs up set to grace Trafalgar Square’s fourth plinth in 2016, and numerous other brilliant projects behind him, his work still feels so prescient and so hilariously real that we’re still extremely excited by each and every project his camp announces. So when we were told about the new spoken word album he’s involved in, Music and Words, we were naturally intrigued.
I think I’m safe in saying that fans of Panda Bear, the pseudonym of Noah Lennox of Animal Collective, are probably pretty into video games. I’m also sure that those who are into video games (myself included) are also fans of the good vs. evil storyline prevalent in most games and a lot of films that resemble games, Studio Ghibli etc. There is pure beauty in the little guy overcoming the big baddie, or the idea of friends working together to solve a puzzle, or to override some kind of evil power.
Some video directors like to head straight to the lyrics of a song for inspiration. The lyrics of Tom Rosenthal’s song Watermelon are as follows: “It’s watermelon time, I said boom boom boom boom boom boom boom. It’s watermelon time, I said boom boom boom boom boom boom boom. It’s watermelon time, I said boom boom boom boom boom boom boom. It’s watermelon time, I said boom boom boom boom boom boom boom. It’s a fruit based love.” It only seems fitting then that the video accompaniment to this tune is footage of a man in an extremely well-crafted watermelon suit, bounding around the British countryside willy-nilly. Hats off to Sidd Khajuria, Ben Elwyn, Nathan Jones, and Tom Rosenthal himself for keeping things simple, with fantastic results.
It’s pretty rare that I give two hoots about dubstep/trap/beats as a musical genre – my dancing sucks and I’m never anything but awkward in a club. But – and this is a big but – stick some slamming bass over sci-fi visuals and I can’t get enough of that stuff. Daniel Swan and David Rudnick’s latest collaboration is exactly that; a brutal mix of intense beats, wailing synth and some incredibly futuristic wartime visuals. There’s a swarm of stealth jets, laser-equipped helicopters and a seriously badass tank. It’s like being in the thick of the best computer game you’ve not yet had the chance to play. Nice!
I’m happy to admit that after watching all three minutes and 47 seconds of Stevie Gee’s new music video for Archie Bronson Outfit, my computer desktop is littered with so many screenshots of boobs, beers and motorbikes in psychedelic hues that I can scarcely find anything else. And the thing is I don’t even mind.
This is nuts. When you thought OK GO couldn’t do any better in one take than their last, famed effort then think again. The foursome are back with one of the most staggering efforts in the history of music videos, this time set in some sort of airport where the gang ride around on electronic unicycles popping umbrellas with about 1000 extras to form kaleidoscopic patterns when shot from above. The jaw dropping first few minutes is totally trumped in the last minute where the whole formation quadruples in size leaving you with your jaw resting on the desk in front of you. Unreal.
There are moments in life when Abba really seem to speak to us. Not just in how the band really seems to get how it feels to be seeing the winner smugly taking it all, or to be terribly grateful for the music, but in the literal sense that they’re actually talking to us. This nonsense is all now a reality thanks to the superb video for beatboxer Roy Kafri’s single Mayokero that’s been doing the internet rounds for a few days.
Gothenburg’s Goat are probably one of the most interesting bands out there at the moment. Their infectious fusion of world music, psych and heavy rock has captured the imagination of a now massive fan base, and their live performances are notoriously theatrical; the whole band costumed and gyrating like some kind of ancient Dionysian cult. Their music videos are pretty nuts too.
Animator and director Tom Jobbins has just been signed to Pulse Films where his first assignment was a video for Tune-Yards’ latest single Real Thing. Never one for subtlety in her promotional films, Tune-Yards’ Merril Garbus already has a roster of punchy, colour-saturated films to her name, so Tom was tasked with creating something that stood up to its predecessors in vibrance and impact, as well as keeping things fresh to move things on for the new album.
A few years back illustrator Rob Hunter produced his debut graphic novel The New Ghost, a story about a novice spirit befriending a troubled astronomer. It was a simple, ethereal tale that left no doubt in our minds that Rob was a burgeoning talent in the comics scene. It obviously made an impact on electronic musician Jon Hopkins too, as he’s just commissioned Rob to lend his illustration skills – and his lonely ghost – to his latest EP Asleep Versions. The two make a fitting pair with Jon’s ambient compositions mixing seamlessly with Rob’s subtle, other-wordly imagery. To top it all off they’ve just released this snappy teaser too, in which animator Sean Weston has brought the ghost to life – a truly breathtaking achievement.
Mark Prenderghast’s new video for Bambooman’s track Clasp is an absolute winner as the bouncy ball, everyone’s favourite childhood play thing, has a starring role. Using 43 of the most garishly coloured bouncy balls and 76 sheets of sandpaper, Mark has created a series of brilliant rhythmic sequences with the balls bouncing in unison to the beat.
