Category: Video

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Introducing the Dark and Seductive Sounds and Visuals of Pleasure Motel

Brooklyn-based artist Dave Tudi has been the creative mastermind of a number of projects I’ve written about over the past few years and his latest project Pleasure Motel’s specializes in an industrial electro pop sound that nods at 80s goth, industrial and New Wave as Tudi pairs crooned vocals with propulsive, 808-like drum beats and cascading analog synths say you’ll hear on Pleasure Motel’s dark and seductive debut single “Skin So Close.”

The recently released music video employs the use of low-fi, classic special effects shot on what appears to be VHS tape, spliced with suggestive photos suggesting kinky, BDSM and late, sweaty, illicit hook ups, emphasizing the song’s sleazy nature.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The Atmospheric and Cinematic Sounds and Visuals of RF Shannon

Born and raised in the Pineywoods Region of East Texas, singer/songwriter Shane Renfro writes and records under the moniker of RF Shannon — and as RF Shannon, Renfro’s sonically specializes in sparse, atmospheric and lush sound that he has dubbed “desert blues” as its largely inspired by his current obsession with the Trans-Pecos region of West Texas — while also nodding towards classic country and Americana, and as you’ll hear on “Had A Revelation” off his Other Trails EP, the single thematically focuses on a lonely man morosely drifting about burdened by his own regrets, helplessness and thoughts under a vast and uncaring expanse of sky and blacktop. Sonically speaking, the song pairs Benfro’s plaintive falsetto croon fed through gentle amounts of reverb, with shimmering pedal steel, steady yet minimalist drumming to create a sound that nods at Caveman’s shimmering, enveloping sound, psych rock and 70s singer/songwriter rock but with a moodily cinematic feel.

The recently released video follows Renfro throughout the course of a long day and night of lonely contemplation broken up by drinking at bars, dancing in strobe lit clubs, riding amusement park rides and playing with cows — and the one consistent thing is that the video’s protagonist is extremely lonely.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Renowned Director and Composer John Carpenter Returns with an Eerie and Cinematic New Single Paired with Equally Creepy Visuals

Lost Themes II’s latest single “Utopian Facade,” is a moodily atmospheric and cinematic composition consisting of throbbing and insistent bass, cascading layers of shimmering synths, and a staccato, string-based sample in what may arguably be Lost Themes II’s most haunting and eeriest single while nodding at Carpenter’s imitable and familiar sound.

Produced and directed by Gavin Hignight and Ben Verhulst, the recently released video for “Utopian Facade,” is the story of an android’s nightmare, hidden in dark, murky forests, set in an uneasy yet relatively near future that feels and looks dimly familiar. As Hignight explains in press notes “We were instantly haunted upon hearing ‘Utopian Façade’. It conjured images of jagged tree branches, dark woods and things that go bump in the night. Our goal was to explore these feelings combined with the visuals of the electronic synth driven world established in the ‘Night’ video from the prior album.” Unsurprisingly Hignight and Verhulst manage to further emphasize the slowly creeping dread and horror within the song, while hinting at the dystopian future that seems almost inevitable.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The Trippy and Cinematic Sounds and Visuals of Gramps The Vamp’s “The Cave of 10,000 Eyes”

Building upon their growing profile, the band’s sophomore effort The Cave of 10,000 Eyes is slated for an October 18, 2016 release and the album’s material draws from Afrobeat, funk, soul, ethio-jazz an other genres for an ominous, moody and dangerous take on 70s funk as you’ll hear on the album’s latest single and title track “The Cave of 10,000 Eyes,” a track that sonically speaking bears a resemblance to The Budos Band and He Miss Road/Expensive Shit-era Fela as the act pairs a deep, funky groove with a sweepingly cinematic feel and a wild, untamed spirit.

Directed by Alaric Rocha, the recently released video for “The Cave of 10,000 Eyes”stars Veronica Roy and fittingly pays homage to 70s Grindhouse cinema, Mad Max, the work of George Romero and Quentin Tarantino.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The Hauntingly Gorgeous Visuals and Sounds of Benjamin’s Brother’s “Room 505”

Benjamin’s Brother is a fairly mysterious British electro folk/electro pop act comprised of a producer and songwriter, who writes and records under the moniker of Benjamin’s Brother and a rotating cast of collaborators and friends who pair haunting and ambient productions with songs that lyrically focus on death, desire and pain, among other subjects. The act’s latest single “Room 505” is an eerily sparse production featuring contemplative piano chords, plaintive, falsetto vocals, stuttering drum programming and brief burst of mournful horns. Sonically, the song reminds me of BRAIDS’ impressive Flourish//Perish but with an aching yearning at its core.

The recently released video features a dancer performing in sparsely arranged room with her doppleganger — but is it all an delusional within her head? Interestingly, the video manages to suggest the internal struggle between our real, internal self and the self we project out toward the world.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The Sensual Visuals and Sounds of The Seshen’s “Distant Heart”

The band’s highly-anticipated sophomore, full-length sophomore effort is slated for an October 14, 2016 release through Tru Thoughts Records and the album’s material reportedly reflects a band expanding upon their sound and lyrical content; St. Juste sings lyrics in a stream of consciousness fashion and as you’ll hear on the album’s first single “Distant Heart,” as the group pairs cascading layers of ambient, squiggling and shimmering synths with stuttering and off-kilter percussion with St. Juste’s plaintive and ethereal vocals to craft a sultry, sensual song that possesses an underlying heartache at it’s core. And in some way the song manages to gently nod at 70s and 80s synth funk and R&B.

The recently released music video for the song is full of slick, sensual imagery including people moving and grooving at a small, 1920s themed club while the members of The Seshen perform the song; the act’s lead singer, strutting past a car accident to chat with a woman wearing a wedding dress, complete with the wedding veil, who later gets her veil sensually removed by two other woman and so on. Interestingly, the video possesses a disorientating, fever dream-like logic in which events occur in a seemingly disconnected fashion.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The Trippy and Technicolor Visuals for Flyying Colours’ “Long Holiday”

Over the summer, I’ve written about Melbourne, Australia-based indie rock/shoegaze act Flyying Colours a couple of times, and if you’ve been frequenting this site, you may recall that the the Australian band was initially formed […]

Video by William Ruben Helms

Live Footage: Lee “Scratch Perry”/Preview: Dub Champions Festival: Lee “Scratch” Perry and Subatomic Sound System at Brooklyn Bowl

Perry turned 80 in March, and remarkably the man has managed to remain youthful, vital, challenging, forward-thinking, innovative, eccentric and imitable as ever as over the past decade or so he’s collaborated with the likes of The Beastie Boys, The Orb, Felix Da Housecat and several others while keeping a fairly busy touring schedule.

The reggae legend returns for the annual Dub Champions Festival at Brooklyn Bowl and this year’s appearance continues Perry’s continued tour with Subatomic Sound System to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the release of Super Ape — and to celebrate the legend’s 80th birthday. Of course, in honor of that occasion check out some live footage of the great and incredibly eccentric Mr. Perry.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Cinemechanica’s Abrasive, Insistent Sounds and Visuals for “Hang Up The Spurs”

The album’s second single “Hang Up The Spurs” will further cement the trio’s reputation for crafting incredibly abrasive and punishing barn burners consisting of spastic tempo changes, dense layers of slashing, angular guitar chords, rapid fire, staccato drumming that evokes machine guns and furiously howled vocals. It’s frenetic, angry, insistent and full of spastic, whiplash-inducing tempo changes that evoke a furious and pain-filled how into an uncaring, indifferent universe.

Comprised of South Park-like construction paper animation by Travis Betz, the recently released video for “Hang Up The Spurs” possess a surreally nightmarish and grimly violet dream-like logic, in which killer robots roam the Earth and stab everything in their sight, including the soldiers tasked to destroy those killer robots and ends with the moon turned into an angry Medusa that turns everything on the planet into stone.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Live Footage: JEFF The Brotherhood Performing “Roachin”

Over the summer, I had written quite a bit about Nashville, TN-based sibling duo JEFF The Brotherhood and the first three singles off their latest effort, Zone, an experimental rock album that is the third and final part of a spiritual trilogy of albums that includes 2009’s Heavy Days and 2011’s critically applauded We Are The Champions. The most recent single I wrote about “Roachin” featured Bully‘s Alicia Bognano on vocals in a scorching, power-chord heavy dirge that sounds deeply indebted to 90s alt rock — in particular, the Melvins — as the song structurally consists of alternating quiet and loud sections, and an anthemic hook that you can picture kids moshing out to in a sweaty club. And much like “Punishment” and “Idiot” the single will cement the sibling duo’s reputation for crafting trippy, weed and beer inspired anthems full of enormous power chords and rousing anthemic hooks.
Just as the Nashville, TN-based sibling duo are about to embark on an East Coast tour, which will include a September 27 stop at the Market Hotel, they released live footage of themselves performing “Roachin” — without Bognano — and it should give everyone a sense of their incredible live show.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The Darkly Surreal Visuals and Shimmering Shoegazer Rock of Dead Leaf Echo’s “Lemonheart”

“Lemonheart,” will further cement their burgeoning reputation for crafting lush and shimmering shoegazer-like dream pop in the vein of RIDE, Swervedriver and Slowdive — or in other words, layers upon layers of shimmering guitar chords played through gentle amounts of reverb, a propulsive motorik-like groove paired with ethereal and wistful vocals.

The recently released video for “Lemonheart” employs a surreal and nightmarish logic as it features a beautiful young woman selling lemonade at a child’s lemonade stand, cutting lemons for lemonade, and occasionally sucking on a lemon when she encounters a man dressed as a lemon mascot, who’s devastated upon seeing the carnage inflicted on his fellow lemons. Running away, he encounters a female lemon who captures his attention and they return to get revenge on our lemonade stand girl.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The Tense, Paranoid Visuals and Sounds of Boys Noize’s “Mayday”

The album’s latest single, album title track “Mayday” has the internationally renowned producer pairing layers of glitchy and stuttering cascading towards the listener, industrial clang and clatter, enormous tweeter and woofer rocking, boom bap beats, wobbling and tumbling low end and a wild array of vocal samples in a swaggering, club banger that feels tense and paranoid, as though its creator was aware of the fact that he’s being monitored every single moment of his life, whether he noticed or wanted it. Interestingly, along with scoring the soundtrack to Oliver Stone’s latest major motion picture Snowden, about the controversial Edward Snowden, who revealed a complicated and invasive governmental surveillance, “Mayday” is featured in the movie and the recently released video, which was created by collaborators LIL INTERNET and Susboy combines footage from Snowden with public global surveillance camera footage and some sobering facts about the NSA and their surveillance program. It should frighten the shit out of you.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstays White Lung Return with an Anthemic, Radio-Friendly, Power Chord-based New Single and Trippy Visuals

“Sister,” the latest single off Paradise will further cement the trio’s reputation for urgent, anthemic hook-laden, power chord-based rock paired with some of the band’s most incisive and probing lyrics to date. Sure, the song may possess a radio-friendly, studio polish but it’s still as forceful as ever. Interestingly, the recently released video was directed by Justin Gradin, who also directed the video for “Hungry,” and the video features a desperate man’s attempt at finding love with two beautiful strangers. As Gradin explains in press notes “In a lonely world a man seeks to find love through his telephone. He discovers two women with whom he becomes obsessed with from their captivating and elegant conversations. In the end, these two women’s thrilling lives and escalating partying leave the man feeling isolated and rejected again.It’s basically a 90s chat line commercial on PCP.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The Dreamy and Hypnotic Sounds and Visuals of Magnetic Ghost’s “Vanish/Vanishing”

Larson’s forthcoming Magnetic Ghost album, Loss Molecules was recorded with renowned indie rock producer Neil Weir at Blue Bell Knoll and by Larson at Magnetic Manson and the effort is slated for a November 18, 2016 release. “Vanish/Vanishing,” Loss Molecules’ latest single has Larson pairing layers of plaintive and ethereal vocals with moody and hypnotic instrumentation consisting of layers of droning and shimmering guitars, a propulsive bass line and stuttering drumming. Sonically speaking, the song reminds me quite a bit of the Silber Records roster.

The recently released video for the song features cinematic and widescreen shot footage of natural phenomenon — i.e., the sun rising in the horizon from the distance, as cars whir past, wind blowing through fields of grain, ice floes in the Arctic, smoke billowing from smokestacks, and so on. It looks like the sort of footage you’d stumble across while watching National Geographic specials — and as a result, it emphasizes the slow-burning, dreamy feel of the song.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The Psychedelic Imagery for Toy’s “I’m Still Believing”

As you’ll hear on “I’m Still Believing,” Clear Shot’s second and latest single, the band’s sound has began to lean more towards lush, guitar pop territory as layers of shimmering and jangling acoustic guitar chords (with gentle amounts of reverb) are paired with soaring synths, an anthemic hook and Tom Dougall’s introspective lyrics, all while nodding at Nick Drakeand Wish You Were Here-era Pink Floyd.

The recently released music video employs a pretty basic concept of having the extremely British looking band performing the song in a variety of strobe lights and Super 8-like filters, sequences of the individual band members broodingly hanging out, brief bursts of animation and Japanese commercials and it gives the entire proceeding a trippy vibe reminiscent of Pink Floyd’s The Wall but with a playful air.