Wednesday 20 August 2014

Video Vacuum - Crystal Stilts, Orlando Furious, Invisible Threads, Naked Bodies


Here is an old(ish) Video Vacuum that I've been meaning to post for about a month and forgot about, slipped through the cracks of time etc etc. Sorry about the delay. But now revel in some A/V madness...


One of the first interviews I ever did was with New York's psychers Crystal Stilts early in 2011. I was recording from home, had just bought a dictaphone (that I still use) and was interviewing singer Brad Hargett as the band tripped from Austin to New Orleans. It was a disaster - the mobile phone played havoc with the frequencies of the dictaphone so I had to try and shorthand on a small scrap of paper as Hargett spoke. People who know me can attest that my writing is pretty abysmal at the best of times, so it took a hell of a lot of deciphering and second-guessing to get the article to come to light. It's actually a pretty good end product. Mainly because i loved the band so much, and the experience, so it all stuck with me. If I had to interview some pop punk band again and that shit went down, I'd probably think "Fuck it" and walk out of the room. ANYway, we now come to their video for the excellent, EXCELLENT song 'Star Crawl' from last year's Nature Noir LP. Vistas in washed out colours, inverted colours, UV raided rays. It fits the wasted malaise of this "ballad" perfectly. As an added bonus, here is a more punked-up track, in line with where they are headed next...


And now for something completely different...


Melbourne's Orlando Furious recorded this back in June. It's on his fresh EP (watch this space regarding that...). Ben is a performance artist, there is no doubting that - but not only is the film clip suitably weird and crazy, but the track 'Fresh' is emblematic of the kind of lo-fi electronic nonsense that ...So We Drowned era Liars revelled and excelled in. It's an amazing song, and proves that Orlando Furious could very well be a fucking genius.


Here is a duo from Auckland playing a warped drone pop a la Wooden Shjips being bled out into the veins of Japandroids (yes I'm into my band comparisons today - sue me). Its standard band-playing-in-a-room fare, with footage projected over them, weird unrelated footage woven together, some slightly Satanic imagery subliminally jumping forth. Above all its a loud as all get out song that really promises a lot. The scrawling squall at the last ten seconds that shows the underbelly of Invisible Threads as masked madmen is a nice touch also.


And let's finish with another guitar feedback heavy song, this one in the stretched out cosmic psych variety, from another Melbourne outfit, Naked Bodies. Another clip relying on incredible editing of bizarre archival footage. And again, when done right like it is here, it is some of the most evocative, alluring, hallucinogenic imagery that you can imagine, and infinitely heightens the appeal of 'Ride On'. In fact the clip is so good it actually supersedes the song. Not a bad thing - it means I have heard 'Ride On' twice as much (if not more) than I would have had the footage not been there. 

NOW GET BACK TO WORK!

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