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:
LDRU – Keeping The Score
Part of a new wave of Australian producers coming out of the gate young, hungry and bursting at the seams with sonic brilliance, LDRU has dropped the visuals for his absolute airwave scorching banger Keeping Score. With a chorus that’s custom built to lose your shit to whether it be on a dancefloor or in a festival moshpit, the accompanying clip does its absolute darndest to pour every colour of the rainbow into one fever dream of a ride. Full of tropical motifs that match the sweltering beats of the track, this one is a hell of a watch.
8 Graves – Two Wrongs
Having freshly released their debut EP War Out There, New York City RnB duo 8 Graves have followed up with a powerful video to go with one of the tracks off that album, Two Wrongs. Dealing with social equality, the clip features a series of simple black and white shots of the interactions of various couples, all clearly deeply in love.
The song is uplifting and the message is even stronger: two ‘wrongs’ can make a right. Beautiful.
Gideon Bensen – All New Low
If Gideon Bensen is a name that tugs at some far flung corner of your memory, you’ve probably also seen him pulling guitar and co-vocal duties for one of Australia’s best and brightest new bands The Preatures. As most musicians this talented in their own right are wont to do, Bensen has released some stellar solo work with new single All New Low and a video for it.
There’s some star power on the track, with one Megan Washington drafted for backup duties and fellow Preatures guitarist Jack Moffitt also stepping up to the plate to help out. Bensen’s slow-burning baritone will mesmerise you over the top of a melting pot soundscape of jazz, soul, electronic, hip hop and a touch of the rock and roll (with a killer guitar solo) that he and his Preatures bandmates are so lauded for.
The video looks like a lo-fi Bond intro, full of silhouetted dancing girls and crimson red lighting that’s as ensnaring visually as the song is sonically.
Leisure Suite – Feel
If you’re looking for some ice cold electronic pop to relax with on a Friday afternoon, the new track and video from Melbourne duo Leisure Suite might be just up your alley. Silky smooth vocals and a minimalistic backbeat are the soundtrack to an oddly soothing video, just lo-fi shots of the backs of people’s heads as they stand or lay or walk around doing their daily activities in various locales.
It’s the kind of song that goes well with a glass of red in a dark room. Look out for their forthcoming EP.
Harriet – American Appetite
Lyric videos are usually lame as hell, but the one for American Appetite from Los Angeles quartet Harriet is beyond a cut above the rest. A POV day in the life of a faceless suite, the way the lyrics are presented just gets increasingly more and more creative as the clip goes on. It’s actually quite fitting that the lyrics to are the main focus, as they’re superbly penned, dealing with the ENRON scandal of a couple of years back.
American Appetite is heavy on the hooks, lightly smoked in some nifty jazz and builds to a positively raucous crescendo. It’s a track and a story that will keep you coming back again and again. It’s off their debut album of the same name dropping January 29th next year.
Breaking Heights – High
Sticking in the City of Angels for this next one. High is a song I’ve gone through and listened to several times now in the writing of this, still don’t know what to make of, but nonetheless love the holy heck out of. It’s like some kind of eclectic mashup of elements of psychedelic, grunge, funk, reggae and electronic. And then that chorus, that breezy, soaring chorus is magic. Then all of a sudden, swerve, we have a rap verse but then we’re back to that skyscraping chorus again. It all just works and has me hitting the repeat button even now.
The video is amazing too, with the Breaking Heights trio taking a wander around what looks like where Trevor lived way out West in Los Santos and just having every shred of fun they can have amongst the dust and the shimmering afternoon California heat. I checked their Facebook for some more details on these guys and found it populated by a grand total of 11 people. 11! Does nobody else have ears?
If they keep putting out songs and videos as infectiously good as this that number is going to get a couple of zeroes added to it, I’m certain.
J Motor – Jungle Daze
Also in the business of bangers is J Motor, also known as Jonathan Vassallo, who has dropped the video for his debut single Jungle Daze this week. With soaring vocals over clever trap beats, J Motor also samples the trumpeting of elephants, those wise old lords of the animal kingdom, Jungle Daze has summer written all over it. The video is a vibrant explosion of colour, featuring elephants, cobras, crocodiles, waterfalls and a whole bunch of other jungle staples.
Not only that, but J Motor’s aim behind the song was to raise both awareness and financial assistance for the plight of elephants around the world, so even if you don’t dig the track, that’s a message everyone can get behind!
Metric – The Governess
Toronto indie rockers Metric have released the latest single from their sixth studio album Pagans In Vegas this week. The Governess is beautifully simple and slow burning rock, the twang of the acoustic guitar riff and the slow stomp of the beat perfect for the music video documenting the lonesome journey of frontwoman Emily Haines down a highway somewhere between California and Nevada and into Las Vegas both in the glitzy neon of the strip and the seedy underbelly just beyond it.
I loved this video purely because of the intense nostalgia of an American road trip of my own a few years ago, if you’ve ever done a similar trip or even just been to Vegas, you’ll love this too.
The Tallest Man On Earth – Darkness Of The Dream
Having released his latest album Dark Bird Is Home to an uproar of critical acclaim earlier this year, The Tallest Man On Earth, otherwise known as uber-talented Swedish musician Kristian Matsson, has this week released a video for the latest single from that LP, Darkness Of The Dream.
Full of gorgeous scenic shots in areas both leafy and barren and juxtaposed with some fantastic contemporary dance routines, the song and clip are gloriously warm and soul-stirring (there’s also a puppy!). The Tallest Man On Earth is responsible for some of the most beautifully introspective music around and he’s done it again with Darkness Of The Dream.
City Calm Down – Son
Currently basking in the end of a mammoth breakout year and the recent release of their amazing debut album In A Restless House after three long years in the making are Melbourne rockers City Calm Down. Son was the last single they released before dropping that album and they’ve now dropped the accompanying video for the track.
Son is full of crafty hooks and melodies, subtle horns dancing around the molten, echoing baritone of frontman Jack Bourke. It’s just one of a wide range of styles the band melded an album out of and most of all it’s catchy as all hell, especially that whirlwind chorus. The video, entirely in black and white, features the band playing in a grand cathedral. Bourke croons from the front of the church, a monk twirling around in a visual representation of the internal struggle of the song.
Marvellous.