Maybe it’s the fact that today is the longest day of the year (happy summer, y’all) that made us think of this Vice Cooler-directed Male Bonding video? It’s the perfect weather for bro-ing out with bros, as Male Bonding (and members of SIGNALS and Abe Vigoda) do in this clip.
It’s summertime jams for the most amount of summertime you can get in 24 hours this year. Enjoy.
LA band Signals has released an adorable, yet slightly disconcerting, video featuring members of Hole and Abe Vigoda, and a swarm of lick-friendly puppies.
Directed by ex-Bay Area underground staple (and recent Los Angelo) Vice Cooler, the video builds on Cooler’s success with his videos for his electro-hip hop project the Hawnay Troof.
Perhaps the most creative use of peanut butter in a music video you’ll see all year.
Signals – “What Dreams” from signals LA on Vimeo.
Check SIGNALS on MySpace .
Ending our music video-themed week here at French Press Films is a post about the new video from SF’s Sandwitches, shot by the cinematographer on our recent Tempo No Tempo video, Jesse Dana.
The Sandwitches, who are fresh off a national tour and a successful run at SXSW, have been busy since they released debut record “How To Make Ambient Sadcake” last year. The video below is for their excellent jam “Kiss Your Feet,” directed by Joey Izzo.
The Sandwitches – Kiss Your Feet from joeyizzo on Vimeo.
Find out more about the Sandwitches on their MySpace.
We’ve all got music videos on the brain, with our video for Tempo No Tempo dropping next week. So when we saw this amazing video for HEALTH, we had to take note and share it with everyone on the blog.
Eric Wareheim has seemingly become the go-to director of the last two years, thanks to his eye-popping work with Flying Lotus, Major Lazer and MGMT. And, although he’s more famous for his “Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!” with collaborator Tim Heidecker, we’re finding ourselves looking forward to Eric’s directing work with music videos more than his work with Tim.
For his latest, a video for L.A. noise-rockers HEALTH, Wareheim moves out of the surreal cartoon style of his previous work for a dark, disturbing chase story through a forest. Although some of his sketches on “Awesome Show, Great Job!” have hinted at darker influences like David Lynch, this video shows a serious creative leap for Wareheim, with serious emotional payoff at the end of the video.
Of course, it being Eric Wareheim, there has to be some exploding testicles. (Spoiler alert?)
Source: Drowned In Sound
The music video has gone through a recent renaissance. Not on MTV, though, which now more than ever is a reality show-only channel, but online. Perhaps that doesn’t sound shocking in writing, but looking at the breadth of artists who are using the music video in innovative ways, it seems that the internet is evolving the video star.
Let’s start with something released this week by Pitchfork-loved NY band Yeasayer, whose “Ambling Alp” was released to anticipatory reviews and general bloggage the other week. They dropped the single alongside AmblingAlp.com, which is an interactive video, with a link to the MP3 of the track, and haunting ambient music (screenshot below). It’s an interactive “anti-video,” as it’s not synced up to the single at all, but still promotes the track, which is a post-Animal Collective world music-via-Brooklyn jam worthy of the praise it’s received.
From amblingalp.com
(As a note, this reminds us a lot of the Arcade Fire’s brilliant Black Mirror video-site)
Next up is Oakland’s own Wallpaper, whose bizarre viral videos garnered the Auto-Tuned songwriter internet attention while recording his LP “Doodoo Face” last year. His official videos have gone the surprising route of embracing lo-fi grit in contrast to his slick yet self-aware R&B. His most recent video, “Getting Drip,” busts out some 80’s greenscreen and VHS effects with surprising aplomb. It’s not quite a viral video, but it goes to show that good ideas will work, even on VHS.
Finally, LA avant-pop genius Pop Levi saw the potential in YouTube and made a brilliant split-screen video for ‘Semi-Babe,’ which needs to be opened in two windows to get the full effect. Splitting the audio into two videos means that there are phasing effects not heard on the original single, adding a fun bit of chaos to the pop track.
All of these videos see artists adapting to the internet, much like artists had to when MTV announced the prominence of the video back in the 80’s.
We’ll have more to say about this music video renaissance next week, so check the blog for a more in-depth analysis of what this means for music marketing and new artists making online video for their records!