Each week, FRINGE MUSIC FIX culls the latest music video releases, carefully selecting the most bizarre, provocative, and remarkable videos from across the world.

This week, a common thread appears in all five of our selections. They all feature explorations of the relationship between mankind and nature with technology and the digital world. Bare witness to a Canadian mountainside that serves as a gateway to an alternate reality mainframe, a woman taunted by the relentless distractions of her mobile phone, an actress whose romantic desires lie in post production, a coast inhabited by superhuman creatures, and a man whose head has been replaced with computer animated imagery.

Sit back, relax, and open your mind’s eye; things are about to get interesting. The following are our selections for the week ending September 7th 2014.

One only needs to look as far as the new video for “Congo" by Bear Mountain to learn more about the talented band and their creative vision. Like their name, the video features mountains, and was shot in British Columbia where the band is from. There are no bears to be seen though, maybe it's too cold for them. The video also employs the same blending of nature with technology as the band’s sound, which fuses rock folk with electronic music. As the group treks across a wintry mountainside treated with stylish computer animations, it’s eventually revealed that a digital alternate reality is concealed beneath the jaw dropping beauty of the Canadian wilderness. The video was directed by Ben Gulliver and produced with assistance from MuchFACT. It premiered on Canada’s own pseudo-music video channel Much Music.

As much as I'm a cellphone enthusiast, I admit that, at times, the addiction can be somewhat invasive and irresistibly distracting. Peaking Lights’ music video for “Breakdown” is a commentary on this very relevant and increasingly common theme. The video was directed by Eugene Kotlyarenko, and follows a woman through her daily routine as she is entertained and shadowed by an anthropomorphic smartphone that represents our reliance on our digital devices. Eventually, the smart phone’s presence becomes invasive in nature, and the catalyst for a series of misfortunes, not excluding a car accident, the loss of employment, and a lackluster love life. The video is funny but also carries and insightful and important reminder that a world exists void of digital displays, so after you watch it, why not put down your phone and go for a walk.

Before “Walking With Elephants," I was not familiar with “flyboarding." This extreme sport employs a jet propulsion pack attached to a personal water craft that propels it’s user from the water and into the air. In Ten Walls’ Nez-directed video, this sport is used in the video’s most captivating and climactic scenes. The video features a group of individuals wearing white and black body suits, running across the majestic Kent coast, to eventually dive into the ocean. As they swim and dive through the ocean like dolphins, we marvel at their inhuman capabilities. While this effect is likely achieved by using flyboards, all the equipment is rendered invisible with brilliant editing work. 

Ian Pons Jewell directs the thought-provoking music video for American electronic production duo Odesza. The visual, which at first seems quite straight forward, features a male and female couple enjoying each other's company on a bright and sunny day. At the visual’s half way point, the camera pans back to reveal that a music video is being shot, and things take a surprising turn for the Charlie Kaufman-esque (Adaptation, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Being John Malkovich). We discover that the lead actress, portrayed by Stephanie Hunt (Californication, Glee, Friday Night Lights), may have suddenly become aware that she is in fact, an actress in a music video, and that the romance and state of bliss she’d experienced had all been a fabrication. Upon wandering backstage, she discovers the footage shot that day in some state of being edited, and she finds a way to inhabit happiness infinitely. This conclusion also renders the video a circular narrative, in that the ending loops perfectly back to the beginning, a technique perfectly suited to multiple viewings.

In the brilliant video for Clipping’s “Inside Out," director Carlos Lopez Estrada revisits the universe he created for another Clipping track, “Work Work."  The first installment saw Clipping frontman, Daveed Diggs, victim of a violent curb stomp at the unforgiving sole of Cocc Pistol Cree, who shattered his porcelain cranium into a million pieces. “Inside Out” resumes exactly where the darkly funny clip concludes, with Daveed wandering the dimly lit streets, sans head. As he spits the lyrics to “Inside Out," an assortment of objects are ejected from his torso to fill the void left behind by his missing dome. The objects are all relevant to the track's lyrics, and find amusing and clever ways to visualize their significance. The effects are done in a fun yet stylish way, and the video does a great job of keeping the lighting consistent through both videos.