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:
Tiny Little Houses – Milo Tin
Winning this week’s award for ‘Most Australian Song Title’ is Milo Tin by Melbourne dudes Tiny Little Houses. The track follows up their breakout EP from 2015 You Tore Out My Heart and stands as their first new material for 2016. The 90s rock throwback vibes are large, big jangly riffs coupled with shoegazey vocals, the chorus is one of the catchiest you’ll hear.
The video, co-shot and directed by Tiny Little Houses themselves alongside friend and previous collaborator Daniel Dunn. It sees the band jamming out in the back section of a St. Kilda corner shop, juxtaposed with the many day-to-day trials and tribulations of a beaten down clerk. Singing about keeping your things in Milo tins while you mung down a couple of Mentos and nick a cup of Mi Goreng off the 7-11 shelves? Pure Australia.
Catch Tiny Little Houses on their Milo Tin Tour round Australia in April and May.
BROODS – Free
Crossing the Tasman next up is the latest single from Auckland duo BROODS. Simply titled Free, the single saw its world premiere over the weekend and is a certified belter. An a capella opening from vocalist Georgia Nott lulls you in before supersonic, pulsating beats from her brother and producer Caleb absolutely bowl you over. The verses burn a long and threatening fuse before the chorus sends you soaring. Free is driving and powerful, another excellent example of some of the new wave of clever pop.
The video visualises the vibe of the song, Nott playing a tormented protagonist stuffed into a virtual reality helmet and forced to experience what must be some fairly strange shit by a pair of smug-looking villains. Her freedom eventually coming via the crashing waves and solitude of the beach.
Touring with Ellie Goulding across the USA in April, BROODS are swiftly on the rise.
Landings – My Bones
Heading back to my home for this next one, the debut single from Brisbane trio Landings. The Two Door Cinema Club and Last Dinosaurs vibes are huge, dance-y guitar riffs and a chorus that takes flight, this is a very auspicious debut.
If you’re mired in the doldrums at work and your next holiday is well and truly over the horizon this music video may hurt you. A lot. The three guys recently completed a writing trip across Europe and documented it in all its adventurous glory just to make you feel as bad as possible about your life decisions. Picturesque scenes for a cracker of a song though? Perfect.
This may very well be the beginning of much bigger things for Landings.
Imarhan – Imarhan
And now to a place that I don’t think has ever been covered by this roundup in Algeria, and quintet Imarhan. Black Sabbath had Black Sabbath on their debut album Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden had Iron Maiden on their debut album Iron Maiden and now Imarhan have Imarhan on their debut album Imarhan.
Their music is described as ‘new wave Tuareg’, the music of the Tuareg people, the principal inhabitants of the Sahara Desert. Classic rock guitar riffs are here coupled with infectious rhythms, the vibe a swirling and psychedelic desert rock number. The video was shot in Imarhan’s hometown of Tamanrasset, Hoggar in South Algeria, full of dust and relentless sunshine and refreshingly depicts a part of the world that wouldn’t even appear on the radar of most Western music fans.
Imarhan is out April 29th on City Slang via Inertia.
Suuns – Brainwash
This one is super interesting. The latest single from Montreal electronic rock foursome Suuns have released their latest single (the third as part of a triptych leading up to the release of their third studio effort Hold/Still) titled Brainwash as both a music video and an interactive virtual reality video game.
The track is a slow-burn, a softly strummed electric guitar giving way to huge distorted synth noise, easy listening and starkly confronting all at the same time. The video for it is lo-fi to the point of looking like a glitched out Nintendo 64 game, but the concept is unique and one that more and more artists may look to adopt given the current rise of VR. I don’t have access to a VR headset to actually play the game shown in the video but if you’re lucky enough to (we’ll totally pretend you didn’t buy it for porn) you can download and play it from here.
Hold/Still is out April 15th on Secretly Canadian via Inertia.
Jessy Lanza – It Means I Love You
Staying in Canada although this time in Hamilton, Ontario is the new single from songstress Jessy Lanza. She has a brand new single ahead of the release of her sophomore album Oh No this year. Straightforwardly titled It Means I Love You, it’s a unique blend of noise, tropical rhythms behind sharp bursts of synth and frequent pitch changes in her cloud-soft vocals. As more and more layers of noise are added the song gets positively frenetic.
The video is intriguing, shots of Lanza across a dreary background leading to her clad in a shimmering gold robe in a smoky greenhouse full of green and leafy plants. The plants are no coincidence, Lanza having taken to filling her home with them to improve the air quality in the lead-up to Oh No.
Oh No is out May 13th via Hyperdub.
The Dandy Warhols – You Are Killing Me
With their 10th (!) studio album Distortland touching down today, perhaps Portland, Oregon’s greatest alt-rock export of the last two decades in The Dandy Warhols have released the music video to accompany their latest single You Are Killing Me.
The tune is a simple chugging rocker guided by some drone-y vocals from frontman Courtney Taylor-Taylor. The video stars ‘Warhol superstar’ Joe Dallesandro (you may remember his crotch from the cover of Sticky Fingers by the Rolling Stones) and is a black and white neo-noir clip featuring Dallesandro as a tortured, whiskey and cigarette fuelled writer whose part gets crashed by a bunch of people in animal costumes (Dandys keyboardist Zia McCabe is the rabbit!). It’s uh… certainly interesting.
Distortland is out now via Dine Alone Records.
Plaitum – Jagwa
And wrapping up this week are Colchester multi-instrumental electronic pop noisemaking duo Plaitum and the title track from their just announced EP Jagwa. The ethereal vocals of Abi Dersiley combine beautifully with some absolutely huge production from partner-in-crime Matt Canham, generating an absolute tidal wave of noise that crashes over the chorus and ebbs away in all the right places.
Directed by In/Out, the music video to go with it is as multilayered as the soundscape behind it, vibrant reds and blues coating everything, the subjects of the video floating into darkness. As far as first tastes go, Plaitum’s latest EP is shaping up to be something special.
Jagwa is out May 20th via Wolf Tone/Caroline Australia.