Eatliz – Hey – Video and Single Review
I’m doing something today that I don’t usually do and that is reviewing one song from a band. I don’t like doing it because one song can hardly be representative of a bands work but in this case the video and song are so interesting to me that I’m breaking my own rules.
Eatliz is an indie band from Israel, in fact they are Israel’s leading alt-rock band, according to their press. They have one album out, Violently Delicate, which I will review at a later date. They also have several award winning videos out on YouTube and Vimeo. The video for “Hey” is a Spike Lee Award winner from the Tribeca Film Festival, a Best Music Video Award winner from the Red Stick International Animation Festival and the winner of several other international awards. The video took three years to make and was directed by Guy Ben Shitrit, who is also the guitarist for Eatliz.
Eatliz – Hey Animation Music Video from Eatliz on Vimeo.
The animation is really quite amazing and seems to be a surrealistic telling of a girls weird adventures as she chases her pet toad who is in the guise of a green balloon. It is like Tim Burton, M. C. Escher and David Lynch engaged in some kind of bizarre menage a trios. The music that accompanies it is also surreal and eclectic. It is a mix of styles and genres and sounds a bit like Rasputina meets Kate Bush. Lee Triffon’s voice certainly has a lot of similarities to Kate Bush’s which is not a bad thing. The lyrics are abstract and at first listen, a bit random and that might be off-putting to a lot of people, it does make the song a bit inaccessible but I didn’t find them too isolating. Together, the film-like video and song weave a twisted narrative which could be a symbolic telling of the girls journey from childhood into adulthood. There are a lot of childhood representations here – the swing, the see-saw, the balloon, the magic box – that combined with her being transformed by the magic box and her using the blood from a fish as lipstick (I don’t know why but that image strikes me as her passage into womanhood) could be construed as her maturing. Of course I wouldn’t rule out the fact that I am reading too much into it.
The video is at least original and unlike the typical things you see occasionally on MTV or MuchMusic (they have long ago abandoned the video in favour of “reality” shows and the OC reruns) it has a visually interesting story and a complicated musical accompaniment. This is more like what you see on Bravo, experimental music with unconventional videos. I found the video fascinating and the song “Hey” to be just eccentric enough to keep my interest although I have to say that I pity any drugged out person who happens to stumble upon it unexpectedly.
For more information about Eatliz, as always you can go to their MySpace page. You can also buy the video for “Hey” as well as the album Violently Delicate and the video for “Attractive” on iTunes. The album is also available from Amazon.com as a hardcopy, full album download or individual song downloads.
This music video is amazing!
tnx for posting