"I Prefer Their Old Stuff"

Although I listen to a lot of new music throughout the year I never get to see many music videos anymore. Sure I could trawl through youtube but unless you know where to look you’re on a hiding to nothing. Since the demise of the excellent 120 Minutes programme that used to go out in the early hours on MTV2, and following this the subsequent downslide and eventual disappearance of MTV2 itself I have yet to find a suitable replacement.

So it’s nice to see the new quarterly column on Drownedinsound.com displaying some of the more creative, weird, disturbing and controversial videos that are still being produced. I have therefore appropriated some of my favourites from the, as far, two columns for this post. These are exactly the sorts of thing that I used to delight in discovering at some ungodly hour on TV!

King Creosote & Jon Hopkins – Bubble Instead of slowly building up to it I’m going to jump right in with my favourite! This is a sublime video by Elliot Dear to accompany what is a rather tasty tune from this collaboration of King Creosote and electronic artist Jon Hopkins. Expand it to full screen and wallow in its beauty!

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-Lr0igwLIY]

Chad VanGaalen – Peace on the Rise A very trippy piece of animation here, reminds me of Robert Crumb combined with the looped animation of one of my favourite pieces, “Revolver” by Jonas Odell. I’ve not heard of Chad before but this is a perfectly nice tune, I’ve no idea what’s going on in the video but it’s still great!

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKHD6INztfA]

Hooray For Earth – True Loves (Cereal Spiller Remix) Sticking with the animation but going in a whole different direction is this excellent video by Cryiak Harris who also did this bizarre cow animation that is my friend’s toddler’s favourite video! Be warned you may get hypnotised!

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mf6JCpJjdiY]

Is Tropical – The Greeks Time for a bit of controversy, kids playing with guns is nothing new, I’m sure we all did it ourselves but when animated guts and gore are added it seems to take on a whole different aspect. It’s done extremely well here by MegaForce but are kids portrayed cooking up cocaine crossing a line? I don’t know but I’ll admit I enjoyed it!

http://vimeo.com/24175601

No Age – Fever Dreaming A deceptively simple seeming video by Patrick Daughters for the deceptively simple seeming noise rock band No Age! I’ve no idea how this video was done but it’s very effective.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jn84clPVbG4]

Gentlemen Drivers – Valdor Cute fluffy pink puppet turns evil and goes bonkers at a family meal with added The Thing style horror? That certainly seems to be what’s happening here, but really who knows?

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uB7Vzedj02g]

Keaton Henson – Charon Another puppet based video but good god what a sad one, who said puppets were happy creatures?! Don’t show this to your kids folks!

Herman Dune – Tell Me Something A final puppet based video but a much happier one, aww isn’t he cute?

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hY_wuw2u5lY]

Manchester Orchestra – Simple Math Finally an extremely clever video by director DANIELS for Atlanta band Manchester Orchestra’s recent single Simple Math. There’s a hell of a lot going on in this video but it’s pretty spectacular.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaMiVDZu_T4]

If anyone has come across some good videos they’d like to share let me know, it’s always nice to know in this dark time for the music business that there is still a lot of creativity out there. Thanks again to Sam Hill over at DiS for finding these!