AWmusic

Before I end up making it sound like the song sucks, which it doesn’t the music video is pretty good. It’s one of those artistic types (which I prefer) and while there’s nothing that makes it wildly significant or has me drooling – it’s impressive in the imagery so check it out:

Black Swans by Sunset Rubdown

Los Campesinos had a wonderful year last year with two releases Hold On, Now Youngster (one of my favorites last year) and We Are Doomed, We Are Beautiful (which I didn’t like too much). Both albums were a critical success and tying it into a great live show the band is well off to great things. Unfortunately, Aleks the female vocalist is leaving the band this year after recording their third album.

“The Sea Is A Good Place To Think Of The Future” sounds like a depressing title for a track with the undertones of a band member leaving – sort of tells a story. The song doesn’t seem to feature any female vocals where Ollie generally has trouble on his own (his voice is annoying even though I don’t mind, some people can’t get over it) he does hold his own on a quiet emotional track. That says a lot because I wouldn’t think he’d be capable of it, although it makes me wonder had Aleks contributed to it (or more, there are some female backup vocals but a lot less then most Los Campesinos tracks).

It’s a good track, not necessarily different from Los Campesinos’ previous work. There’s nothing wrong with that as the band was and is still really good at what they do.

Rating: 4 out of 5

The Sea Is A Good Place To Think Of The Future by Los Campesinos

Check out the video:

The Sea Is A Good Place To Think Of The Future from Los Campesinos! on Vimeo.

Anyway the video: freaking awesome.
It’s not a complicated video by any means but it uses some cool techniques, layering the track between it’s fast pace and the slow vocals while switching back and forth between shots and letting the more choatic scene to be in the background. It also looks cooler since frontman Jake Duzsik is looking stoic along with some slow down choreography. I can’t forget to mention blood swimming orgies and hot women. Check it out:

Die Slow by Health

You probably don’t want all the gory details, but I’ve been sick all week, hence, no posts. So, sadly, this week’s Pick of the Week isn’t exactly going to be as comprehensive as usual (note: usually they’re not comprehensive, so you’re not really missing much).

The first time I saw this video via Colin Medley (dir.)’s blog I said to Liz “it looks like the guy from the D’Urbervilles got into his Mom’s closet” (jokingly)… kind of like the scene on Friends where Ross dresses up in girl clothes and hosts a tea party… turns out, it is, in fact, John O’Regan of the D’Urbervilles and his alter-ego Diamond Rings.

I wasn’t exactly sure what to make of the song at first — I mean, the make-up and the whole aesthetic of the video threw me for a curve — but I’ve definitely warmed to it, the Seattle SuperSonic (R.I.P.)’s jerseys, the eye make-up, and the whole bit. Most of all, the last couple of days while I’ve been under the weather (and feeling like Armegedon is imminent — the airshow is in town) its been a nice pick-me-up. Basically, its a really fun song, so it’ll be interesting to see what, if anything, comes out of the song (an album? EP?). In any event, it’ll be a good tune to send you on your holiday weekending, presuming, of course, you don’t have to work; but even if you do it might make you feel better about working…

“All Yr Songs” (dir.) Colin Medley

“All Yr Songs” (acoustic)

All Yr Songs by Diamond Rings

Photo credit to Matthew Filipowich

Lyricless music is always a bit of a doozy to make a video for. On one hand, there is much more artistic freedom on the director’s part since there aren’t any verbal indicators as to what the song is about. I always find it disdaining when the video is obviously a different story from the lyrics. But on the flip side, there is really no starting point or basic idea so there is a lot more work to be done. I’m sure there is some temptation to just create some sort of trance-y screensaver-like animation and be done with the whole thing but that’s not very inspiring.

I like this video because it’s a quirky contrast between the modernness of the music and antiquity of the footage (the movie is 45 years older than the song). The colours remind me of the aforementioned screensaver animations but work well with the music.

Jason and the Argonauts tells the story of a mythical Greek hero who is on the quest to obtain the Golden Fleece (fleece of the winged ram Chrysomallos). In typical Greek mythical fashion, Jason is the son of a slain father and lives out a prophecy. His father was overthrown and murdered by Pelias who later sends his son as a mole on Jason’s journey to sabotage him. In the end (spoilers!) everything works out and Jason finds the Golden Fleece and regains the throne. The characters in the footage seem to be mostly of Jason and Hercules (one of men who join Jason on his quest).

The wincing facial expressions are a bit of an oddity and caught me offguard at first. It looks like my 11-year-old brother playing with a video by fastforwarding and rewinding interchangeably. This part would have been just plain silly had there not been some sort of synchronization between the facial movements and the music.

What do you guys think of the song title? Smash Bros reference?

Ratatat – Falcon Jab

Anyway the song and video would fool me again that Antony is somewhat female as the song itself is very feminine yet does a gorgeous job with the track. There wasn’t really much to the original so it’s easy for one to say how this one is obviously better. The cover is much more emotional and heart felt so I’ll just leave as that.

The music video starts off with a mix of lo-fi videography and high-quality though dark in general. I assume it’s supposed to have a dark feel to it. It’s a simple video really, perhaps maybe a little boring. Still a good song.

Crazy In Love by Antony and The Johnsons

Eyedea & Abilities have recently released their newest album titled “By The Throat” on Rhymesayers. After their 5 year hiatus (during which they both took on personal projects) they are back, but with a completely different sound than one could have anticipated.

Although Abilities never followed a set rule when it came to production, he’s completely gone off in a different direction with this release. I’m not sure how I feel about the new album yet. It’ll take me some time to get used to it.

They recently dropped the video for ‘Junk’ – with it’s grungy production, Eyedea starts by spitting rhymes with a familiar cadence… Then comes the chorus. Maybe not my favorite part of the song, but I’m pretty down with the rest of it. The video does fit the music very well though – distorted and dark. With a mess of hair and scruffy beard and his new approach to the music, it’s almost looking like Eyedea is on his way to becoming the Kurt Cobain of Hip Hop.

The video is pretty good. Much more interesting than a lot of crap music videos out there. While the take home message is against the hunting of whales, it’s a little hard to make much sense of it. It is however very artistic and keeps your eyes peeled on the screen. Very well done for a 5 minute track.

Sadly for Ledger it looks like he was just scratching the surface of his ability.

Official link.

Unofficial link to stream: – expect it to be taken down.

King Rat by Modest Mouse

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.

Eatliz – Hey

So, fuck it…. This is what you get in the meantime – something to give you a mushy cranium so I don’t feel so bad about mine.

Try and hate me for this post…. Deep down, you know you love it.