It’s video roundup time! Once again, Howl And Echoes are coming in hot with the freshest, most eyeball stimulating music videos to be dropped by the artists you love and some of the artists you don’t know you love yet, of this week. We do all the dirty work and herd them all into one convenient web-based location for you to enjoy every Friday so that you don’t have to. Have yourself a good old gander at the latest offerings from:
Phia – Do You Ever
Kicking this week’s edition off with a new video from Melbourne experimental duo Phia, who have put this one together in the lead up to their upcoming debut album The Ocean Of Everything. The track is pure pop at its absolute bubbliest, a nifty little kalimba melody and some pulsing synths and handclap beats anchored oh so sweetly by singer Sophia Exiner’s gentle vocals.
The video sees Phia indulging in a whole lot of arts and crafts, creating paper cutouts of some of the lyrics and throwing glitter and paint around like there’s no tomorrow. Keep an eye out for The Ocean Of Everything when it lands later this year.
Last Dinosaurs – Wurl
Returning in a massive way last year with the release of their sophomore record Wellness, Brisbane indie rock royalty Last Dinosaurs are still riding the positive waves generated by that album in the New Year, this week releasing a video for Wurl from that album.
In typical Last Dinosaurs fashion, it’s a punchy little rock song with a chorus that absolutely soars. The video has been drenched in pastel colours, the clip meshing together a whole bunch of old stock footage with shots of the band playing and conducting a few different science-y projects.
If you’re in Melbourne next week you can catch the Last Dinosaurs guys at the Melbourne Zoo as part of their Twilight Series before they head out on a tour of Indonesia and Thailand.
Bleached – Wednesday Night Melody
Does Howl And Echoes love us some Bleached or what. We were well and truly won over by their previous video for Keep On Keepin’ On, the lead single from their upcoming sophomore record Welcome The Worms.
The riffs are utterly gargantuan, and stomp along with the kind of raw power that would make Joan Jett grin from ear to ear. The accompanying video is a cracker too, two-thirds of Bleached in Jessie Clavin and Micayla Grace coming home to find singer Jennifer Clavin deader than disco. With a gig in Hollywood to honour, do Bleached cancel?
Fuck no they don’t, they rig Jennifer’s cadaver up with ropes and go full Weekend At Bernies with her and then tossing her to the wolves. Because of course. It’s videos like this that make writing these roundups every week an absolute pleasure.
Welcome The Worms is out April 1st via Inertia.
Little May – Remind Me
Keeping with rocking all-girl groups is the new video from Little May. One of the heavier tracks on their stunning debut record For The Company that blew listeners everywhere away, Remind Me sees Little May diversifying their captivating sound and doing it well.
The video is a collaboration with renowned Sydney visual artist EARS. Matching the frenetic energy of the track, it’s awash with colour and wholly organic, a mixture of milk, water, oil and food dye apparently used in creating some of the hypnotic liquid sequences.
You can catch Little May as they support City And Colour on their Australian tour across March and April and then again on their largest ever headline tour of their own in May.
Third Floor – Thinking Of You
Sticking around in Sydney for this next one, it’s the debut video from producer Aaron Bannie, also known as Third Floor. He has an upcoming EP Dream State that he’s putting a visual twist on, releasing its four tracks with accompanying videos as an episodic short film.
Thinking Of You marks the beginning of protagonist Charley Rose’s story, a dark romance narrative backed by a hypnotic synth-based soundtrack. Water seems to be a constant, lashings of late night rain, the waves on the beach and a dripping tap that sonically mirrors the steady click percussion grounding the track all featuring prominently.
Third Floor definitely has us hanging out for episode two.
Japanese Wallpaper – Arrival
Having enjoyed 2015 and as big a breakout as a young artist could possibly hope for Melbourne multi-instrumentalist and freakish music prodigy still in his teens (!) Gab Strum, aka Japanese Wallpaper. Having just ended a huge Laneway tour, he’s this week dropped a brand new video for Arrival off of his explosive eponymous EP.
Dreamy and atmospheric, his collaboration with the extraordinary Dustin Tebbutt is given stunning visual justification here. Directed by Thomas Pollard, it features some stunning bushland shots, the video’s protagonist watching as the car that was her home spontaneously erupts in flames mesmerising and heartrending.
Japanese Wallpaper’s star looks set to skyrocket in 2016.
Skegss – Heart Attack
Byron Bay legends Skegss are kicking off their 2016 with their latest music video. Heart Attack was the final track on their debut EP 50 Pushups For A Dollar and represented a much more mellow sound than we’re used to from Ratbag Records’ finest. It’s nonetheless become a live favourite in a very short time.
Shot in grainy black and white and evidently filmed on the road for their headling ‘A Chinese Feed And A Couple Of Beers’ tour just gone by (watch out for members of their outlandishly entertaining tour mates The Pinheads making cameos), it features the Skegss dudes and friends shredding up a skatepark and then a stage, Heart Attack providing a breezy, jangly soundtrack to a glimpse of life on the road.
Catch Skegss this weekend playing Mountain Sounds (don’t worry, they’re not clashing with Violent Soho)
DMA’s – Too Soon
With their debut album Hills End just a week away, Sydney trio DMA’s have been extra busy in the lead-up, wrapping up a gargantuan Laneway tour last week and releasing the video for second single Too Soon.
It’s a straight up rocker from DMA’s, with a chorus that I heard bellowed straight back at the band when they played it to an unbelievably vast Laneway crowd in Brisbane. The video for it is in typical DMA’s lo-fi fashion, a mixture of shots of the band feeling the song in slow-motion on a rooftop, in a hazy pink living room, in a dark room in black and white. It captures the Britpop sound and vibe perfectly, something DMA’s have built a career on as one of Australia’s best and brightest exports.
Hills End is out next Friday, February 26th via I Oh You.