Each week, FRINGE MUSIC FIX culls the latest music video releases, carefully selecting the most bizarre, provocative and remarkable videos from across the world.
Sit back, relax, and open your mind's eye; things are about to get interesting. The following are our selections for the week ending March 16th, 2014.
Complete with lasers, smoke machine and retro fashion, Australian alt-popper Chela takes us back in time to the deep 80s in her club themed video for "Zero." Not unlike Chelas video for "Romanticise," this one also features some excellent and unique dance choreography on Chela's part, with some support from two glowing-eyed female backup dancers. We also delve a bit further into cult horror/scifi/fantasy terrain with some mystical fire conjuring. The whole thing wouldn't be complete without some scantily clad percussive and keyboard accompaniment from some muscular Kenny G-like dude.
"Going Home" features a beautiful series of "tableaux vivants" that foreshadow impending doom. Each scene focuses on a single subject in a unique setting that ranges from an attic to a dated looking living room. As we observe the videos progression through a tilting and unsettling camera, disasters such as floods and storms and perhaps of a more supernatural nature, slowly creep into in each scenario.
Holding true to BANKS' quickly growing videography, "Brain" is a tastefully alluring mostly monochromatic video that sees the talented songstress done up in a variety of fashions. Sometimes BANKS is featured in a circular frame, or veiled in silk while shot in the reflective surface of water, but the constant is always how absolutely stunning she is. Transitions between shots of BANKS feature a combination of kaleidoscope and rorschach inspired effects. Setting the video apart from most of her other videos (Safe for "What It Feels Like East"), past the halfway point, this one features some splashes of red and fuchsia that serve as an interesting contrast.
The second installment of "Unfortunate Details" series featuring Bret Easton Ellis, whose involvement in music videos appears in our column for the second time in two weeks - last week Ellis was featured with a screenwriter credit for Dum Dum Girls' "Are You Okay." If you arent familiar with the "Unfortunate Details" series, the videos are part music video and part mystery solving exercise. As details and clues are revealed in slow motion and close up shots, what at first seems like a very simple narrative plays out to reveal much more complicated scenarios. As the video concludes, the viewer is challenged to select the correct scenario, or devise their own based on the clues presented. While the series may sound like sensory overload on paper, director Saman Kesh executes the videos with style and a heightened sense of detail that gives the videos an exceptional consistency and cohesiveness.
DJ Snakes DANIELS-directed video for "Turn Down For What" inarguably wins best video of the week. The genre transcending and unforgettable video features a ridiculous and inexplicable premise that nearly defies description. The video begins with an Asian man on the roof of an apartment building who soon loses complete control of both his genitalia and his urge to dance. As the pattern of the video fully reveals itself, our Asian antagonist makes use of an epic slow motion dry hump to smash through the ceiling and crash into the apartment below, which is inhabited by a female. As the man continues to dance, his uncontrollable dance moves eventually infect the girl and she joins him in random acts of crude dancing and tweaking. Soon, the couple breaks through to the next floor, as the insane dance party continues and grows, everyone loses control of their genitalia, causing private part driven chaos and destruction. It's an insane and hilarious video that teeters of NSFW in the best of ways.
HONORABLE MENTIONS
Booka Shade - Crossing Borders
Franz Ferdinand - Fresh Strawberries
