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 minds eye; things are about to get interesting. The following are our selections for the week ending July 6th 2014.
The Work Inc. and BLOOMS present the slow burning and tension building music video for the equally emotive single, If I. The narrative and cinematic styled visual explores the calm before the storm in a tough neighbourhood where things can and do take a violent turn in a instant.
Many directors have attempted to tap into the current trend of 80s and 90s inspired film making. Few have achieved this better than White Rabbit do with the minimal yet effective gem of a video for emerging Scottish act, PAWWS, synth-laden track, Sugar. The video was produced in low resolution and in letterbox format to give it a VHS styled effect. The kaleidoscoping visuals of PAWWS Lucy Taylor performing, further enhance the videos classic and familiar feel. Sugar could have legitimately been crafted in the 80s and sealed in a time capsule to be unearthed today and enjoyed by the YouTube generation.
Like the aforementioned visual for PAWWS Sugar, White Seas Jordan Bahat directed music video for Prague situate's itself somewhere in the realm of 80s inspired synth-pop and cult film, both visually and sonically. Bahat weaves a familiar tale of a strange adolescent longing to be accepted amongst his peers. In the surreal and gloomy visual, we are introduced to our teenage protagonist, who inexplicably wears an ominous mask over his head. The teen is observed in various states of brooding by both the viewer as well as by White Sea frontwoman, Morgan Kibby, who watches him from afar. Kibby soon meets with and embraces the teen in her arms, only to have him inexplicably vanish in a mysterious cloud of vapor.
Toronto based electronic duo, Ark Analog, comprised of Maylee Todd and Dan Wells, serve up a meticulously edited music video for Was That It?, with direction from A.J. Bond. As Bond put it, the painstaking process employed in the videos conception consisted of manipulating images to literally stretch time across the screen to give the effect of a hypnotic and chaotic temporal collage.
Once again, director Geoff Hoskinson impresses with the visually stunning video for Year of the Tiger. The song is taken from Sufjan Stevens 2001 Enjoy Your Rabbit. Stevens record label, Asthmatic Kitty, has recently re-issued the album on vinyl. The music video features a bold and vibrant colour pallet, which has come to be expected from Hoskinsons work, and focuses on two animated tigers which are observed mouthing the songs vocals. The beautifully detailed video is a magnificent addition to Hoskinsons quickly growing portfolio, and inarguably this weeks most unforgettable release.
