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 August 10th 2014.
Emerging teenage Australian hip hop prodigy, Tkay Maidza and Mathematics partner up to create a refreshing and vibrant visual for Maidza's infectious single, "U-Huh". The fun performance based visual employs both VHS style footage and more modern stock to give it a timeless quality quite appropriate for a younger artist, whose talent and maturity far exceed her actual age.
Ellis Bahl directs Capital Cities as they employ objects found at a very typical yard sale to create a spontaneous and very atypical makeshift music video. The energetic clip is a great example of a video that refers to a song's lyrical themes without being too literal.
Alt-J have gone on record in stating that "Left Hand Free" was written half as a joke and half to appease their record label's request for a big accessible single to help promote the release of their forthcoming sophomore LP, "This Is All Yours", which will be released this fall. In keeping true to these factors, director Ryan Staake was asked to conceive a music video that would serve as an intentional cliché of sorts by featuring vignettes of teenagers partaking in very atypical American summer activities. While the visual is perhaps less eccentric and provocative than videos we've come to expect from Alt-J and Ryan Staake, it's level of cinematic quality and tongue in cheek execution make for a intriguing and engaging viewing that impresses in ways you may not expect.
Presented as a short film of sorts, the Daniel Wolfe directed music video for Paolo Nutini's "Iron Sky" is a bleak and thought provoking one. As described by Wolfe, the video is a "dystopian vision of the future as imagined by a child in the 80s." In this future, mankind is afflicted with excruciating and debilitating migraines that can only be eradicated through the use of a mysterious drug called Aurora. The visual opens with a documentary styled sequence in which migraine sufferers describe both the plight of their affliction as well as the quick relief provided by Aurora. This portion of the video adds a level of realism, that may even send you on a Google search to verify the existence of Aurora. The impressively acted and at times disturbing visual is shot in a style reminiscent of the cult sci-fi films of the 80s.
Canadian animator Joel Mackenzie directs the wildly imaginative Saturday Morning Cartoon inspired video for Halifax based electronic pop artist, Rich Aucoin. The short is entitled "Lumberjacked", and it features an amazing cast of characters including, but not limited to, a heroic lumberjack. As tensions build, the lumberjack seeks assistance from Mother Nature in his battle to conquer a diabolic 8 bit monster and his 8 bit bees intent on destroying their woodland home via urban sprawl. The only way the video could be better were if it were a glimpse at an actual new series being developed. Cartoon production companies, it's not too late!
