VIDEO VACUUM - Violent Soho, Pairs, Arundel, Beat Radio

Man, I'm done for the day (can't wait for the weekend to kick off), but I know some of you are just about to wrap up for the week (and a few are just starting...) Either way, let's waste those last/first moments on some visual toons...



We've already posted about 'In The Aisle', the new track from local miscreants Violent Soho and a taste of new album Hungry Ghost (read what Nathan thought here). This video is brilliant for two reasons - it shows why it's great to live in Brisbane...and it's solely about a dude riding his bike in the nude, putting up flyers about nude bike riding. That's it. These two things aren't mutually exclusive (although in my eyes they are - sorry Dario), but it makes a killer video (congrats Dario!)



Next we have Shanghai maelstrom Pairs, another SM fave of late. They have just out out this video for 'Mean Buzz', a great little number off their double LP If This Cockroach Doesn't Die, I Will (out on Metal Postcard Records). The album is ace; the track typically droll, ramshackle and loud; and the vid is under two minutes of the duo in a warehouse getting shit thrown on them. Nice.

Another band that Nathan paid lip service to recently was NY's Beat Radio. They have released this video for 'Hurricanes, XO' (their best track IMO), and the stock  B&W footage of watersports of the 50s (some rather bizarre) somehow perfectly complements this fuzzy beauty (it also makes me miss Screamfeeder).



Let's finish off with an understated gem by another Brisbane native, Arundel. 'Flourish' found its way on the latest New Weird Australia compilation Sixes & Twelves (and is my fave compilation of theirs thus far - albeit with many friends' acts finding their way in there...) and he has synced it up here with re-cut scenes from the excellent 2011 movie Monsters. Truly beautiful and the best way to bliss out, fading to black.

NOW GET BACK TO WORK!

Video Vacuum - Haunted Leather, Iroquois Falls, Romare, Arundel

Prepared for some more obscure recordings with visuals? Sure you are. Let's go.

I posted about Desert Spells, last year's hazy trip that was Michigan band Haunted Leather's debut LP here. Well here is an equally lysergic hit in the eyeball with their vid for 'Shapes On The Wall' evoking Alejandro Jodorowsky's The Holy Mountain. The track mines Black Angels at the most dirgey, which they themselves are stepping away from, so this is timely. The track is from upcoming album Red Road - call me mightily excited.



Iroquois Falls is a Toronto artist that has just released an interesting 7" of which she has made videos for both tracks. This is for the B-side, 'The Magician's Niece'. The crunching, the organ, the driving guitar, the Polly Jean meets Patti Smith vocal delivery, all bodes well, but it don't hang together if it ain't good. This is some pretty interesting stuff - intriguing to see where this all heads. Keep an eye on this artist.



I received this cool video in the inbox last week, and although the track isn't necessarily my thing, the visuals sucked me right in. Romare is a London based artist who put out an EP called Meditations on Afrocentrism, a concept based on the idea that a new form of music can emerge by investigating the relationship between different musical cultures through sampling. Samples of songs, speeches, interviews, field recordings and films were carefully chosen and rearranged to explore the connection between African and African-American music. Rhythms from West Africa are integrated with voices from Harlem, conversations about race and identity between writers and ethnomusicologists are constructed, speeches from activists are conjoined with the voices of prisoners. This process of combining preexisting material perfectly marries with the spliced imagery here (courtesy of Hugo Presser).



Finally we return back to Brisbane. Again, another artist I wouldn't necessarily write about (although he put on a good show support Mt Kimbie not too long ago), Arundel is a "dream-pop/electronica producer" who has been compared to Royksopp, Massive Attack, & Gotye. Well, I kinda get it... Much of what he does is produced via live instrumentation, and his collaborations particularly with Kate Jacobsen (Texas Tea) and Claire Whiting (Inland Sea) are pretty sweet. Here is the latest video for 'A Deep Freeze' from his Olive Caves EP from earlier in the year, which features Jacobson and Simon Crossley (Skypilot).



NOW GET BACK TO WORK!