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 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:
Hedge Fund – Summer’s Getting Shorter
Starting off with Sydney’s Hedge Fund this week and the video for their latest single Summer’s Getting Shorter. Featuring an absolutely stomping bass line amidst a swirling dream pop soundscape, the track has been met with instant acclaim since its release.
The video features frontman William Colvin giving a carpark everything he’s got, cutting shapes all over it with joyous abandon. Seriously, nobody has had more fun than he has dancing around on this rooftop at sunrise, watch and see for yourself.
Catch Hedge Fund on their Summer’s Getting Shorter tour around the country, they’ll be playing their own headline shows as well as supporting British India.
Pacific Heights – Buried By The Burden (ft. Louis Baker)
This next one is a trip. Pacific Heights is the solo project from Shapeshifter member Devin Abrams. Soulful and ambient, his latest single Buried By The Burden is utterly heartrending, gorgeously minimalistic production surrounding his goosebump-inducing voice, the noise pressing in on you and building to a cacophony.
The film clip is 10/10 for creativity and ingenuity too, made using 3D laser printing and an XBox Kinect, it looks like the trailer for a survival horror video game. The stark monochrome melds perfectly with the sound to create a truly compelling experience.
Look out for Pacific Heights’ debut album The Stillness coming later this year.
Marcus Whale – My Captain
This next one from Sydney artist Marcus Whale (who you may know as half of Collarbones) delves back into a dark part of history. My Captain is his latest single, a jarring, violent and almost industrial track with an unforgiving wall of sound behind it.
The track and its accompanying video tell the story of James Nesbitt and Captain Moonlite, purported to be lovers in 19th century Victoria until Nesbitt’s death at the hands of the police. The story goes that Captain Moonlite cradled Nesbitt’s body, heartbroken. The video moves this scene to the roiling ocean waves and it’s even more powerful for it.
My Captain is from Marcus Whale’s Inland Sea, out now on Good Manners Records.
Defron – Montblanc (ft. Niamh)
Next up is Melbourne MC Defron and his sophomore single Montblanc. If you weren’t sure from the title, it’s a track with a running theme of pens and how to steal them (and also the bittersweet fading of a friendship). At six minutes long it’s a sprawling journey of a track but Defron’s precision delivery ensures there’s no lull here.
The video is a gritty snapshot of urban Melbourne, Defron rhyming from a dimly lit apartment and the grimy sidewalk before the conclusion of the song splices in animated lashings of colour.
Montblanc is from Defron’s debut EP Invalid, out now.
Kiiara – Gold
If you like your pop to be both clever and catchy then the latest single from songstress Kiiara is right up your alley. Gold is a nifty three and a half minute slice of smoky goodness, Kiiara crooning over the top of some perfectly layered off-kilter noise evoking dripping taps.
The video, directed by Kiiara herself because some people have all the talent, matches the high end production of the song itself, the singer assuming her throne in the middle of what looks like a fun and terrifying house party.
Gold is from the EP Low Kii Savage, out now via Atlantic.
Sahara Beck – Here It Comes
Having just won big at the Queensland Music Awards, currently playing this year’s Bluesfest and with a forthcoming album in Panacea on the way, Sahara Beck is very much on the up in 2016. Her latest single in the lead-up to her album is Here It Comes, a positively stomping number full of twangy guitars and big percussion, Beck’s vocals are effortlessly cool over the top of it all. And that crescendo, by God it is mammoth.
The sepia-tinged video sees Sahara Beck take the jam to a domestic setting, her band swapping out instruments for everyday household items. The whole thing rocks so hard.
Panacea is out April 22nd via Create/Control.
Nicholas Allbrook – Advance
Advance is the newest single from Pond frontman and total legend Nick Allbrook, a taste of his upcoming album Pure Gardiya that we’re positively fiending for. Turning the David Bowie vibes right up, Advance crests and falls and howls and whispers, a song that seems made for a huge stageshow.
The accompanying video sees Allbrook covered in liberal lashings of gold and glitter, an all-white guitar in hand and blood smeared across his face, the whole thing is a production in itself.
Pure Gardiya is out May 27th via Spinning Top. Check out our latest interview with Nick in the meantime here!
Rae Sremmurd – Over Here
Rounding out the video roundup this week is Over Here, the newest single from hip-hop brothers Rae Sremmurd. You haven’t embedded the video, you say? That’s because this one is entirely interactive, something more than a few artists have been utilising in this day and age.
Head to https://overhere.tv/ on your mobile deviceand see for yourself. It’s definitely one of the better interactive videos we’ve ever gotten to play with.
See you next week! Happy Easter!