maxresdefault

Weekly Video Roundup

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:

Tigertown – Lonely Cities

Lonely Cities by Sydney’s Tigertown is a song you’ve no doubt heard being flogged all over the airwaves in recent times. It’s a heavenly slice of stomping electro pop, the chorus transporting you back around 2009 when bands like MGMT and Passion Pit were at their pinnacle.

The accompanying video for Lonely Cities is out today. Shot as a triptych of constantly changing situations, though dancing seems to be the order of the day. There are splashes of vibrant colour everywhere and it makes the video just as fun as the song itself.

You can find Lonely Cities on the EP of the same name, out now via Inertia.

Summer Flake – Tumbling Down

Summer Flake are a trio out of Adelaide with a brand new single. Tumbling Down and its video landed this week, the latest from their album Hello Friends which was released earlier in the year. The song is some brooding and atmospheric folk, frontlady Steph Crase’s sweet but strong vocals and a gently strummed acoustic guitar the anchor.

The video was shot on the altar of a church in South Australia and comes complete with its own choir, which is just one of the many perks of shooting in a church I guess (sweet acoustics too!).

Hello Friends is out now via Rice Is Nice. You can catch Summer Flake live on their Hello Friends tour of Australia kicking off tonight in Hobart!

Tacocat – Talk

Winning the band name award for ‘Things The Internet Loves Mashed Together’ are Tacocat out of Seattle this week and their brand new single Talk. Coming from their latest record Lost Time, the song is a straightfoward chugging rocker with almost shades of The Misfits once it builds to that huge chorus.

Ultraviolet is the running theme in the accompanying video, hues of it splattered over nails, lips, guitars and clothes, gaudy neon lights blinking across the whole video. Glittery and glam visuals over a no-frills rock and roll song? I’ll take it any day of the week.

Lost Time is out now on Hardly Art via Inertia.

Lupa J – Numb

It’s strange to think Sydneysider Lupa J only just finished high school and has already made a name for herself this big. With an EP My Right Name on its way, Numb is a track from it that was written by Lupa J at the age of 15 (the age when most of us were content being general shitheads). It’s a shimmering and pulsating electro pop song, the kind that is just perfect for listening to in the warmth of your own home while there’s a winter drizzle outside.

Speaking of cold, the accompanying video will make you feel just a tad chilly, the video’s protagonist walking through some dreary city rain juxtaposed with shots of Lupa J dancing by the water and tangling herself up in fairy lights to very cool effect.

Having just wrapped up a tour supporting Sarah Blasko, the sky looks the limit for Lupa J and we’re looking forward to that EP immensely.

RJD2 – The Sheboygan Left

The only thing I know about Sheboygan was that John Candy’s polka band in Home Alone were (allegedly) a pretty big deal there. The Sheboygan Left, the new single and video from Philadelphia producer RJD2 and his latest album Dame Fortune, isn’t really doing much to update my knowledge of that Wisconsin city but it’s a cracker track nonetheless.

Positively smoking lounge jazzy actually, funk rhythms and a lone jangly guitar building to a big crescendo to play it out. It’s a melting pot of different genres and noises and it’s just so cheery. The video takes place on the New York underground, a pair of contemporary dancers getting around down there and being followed by a shimmering ball of light. Super cool stuff.

Dame Fortune is out now via RJ’s Electrical Connections.

Gypsy And The Cat – I Just Wanna Be Somebody Else

Melbourne duo Gypsy And The Cat are back, and so is that giant-headed cat nightmare from their last music video for Inside Your Mind. I Just Wanna Be Somebody Else is the title of their latest banger, full of clicky percussion and scuttling synths behind some ethereal vocal harmonies. The chorus kicks in in a mammoth way.

The video is fantastic. The cat-headed creature dude continues to traipse around while the rest of Tokyo pretends his existence isn’t a horrifying affront to humanity. He enjoys activities such as the driving range (needs to work on that swing a whole lot) and a karaoke bar with Gypsy And The Cat themselves (have they given up their dogged pursuit of him from only a video ago already?).

More questions than answers here but a great tune and a great video anyway. Gypsy And The Cat’s third LP Virtual Noise is due out in August of this year.

LISHI – Monster Kids

Mystery shrouds this latest single, the debut effort Monster Kids from a brand new project by the name of LISHI. An atmospheric dream pop experience that almost seems to float in zero-gravity, buoyed by beautifully ghostly vocals that evoke gently falling rain.

The video is a stunner too, directed by visual artist Vasilisa Forbes, featuring its magenta-haired protagonist gliding through gloomy urban surrounds and a mysterious figure in the background, wearing what looks like the sparkliest ninja mask ever forged. It’s an incredibly auspicious debut.

Looking forward to whatever else LISHI has in the works if it’s going to be consistently this good.

Beach Baby – Lost Soul

One of my favourite rock acts going wraps up this week’s roundup in Beach Baby and their brand new single Lost Soul. While not as supercharged as the song you probably know them for in Limousine, Lost Soul is still just as good, jangly guitars and the smoky croon of frontman Ollie leading a song just silly with clever pop hooks.

The lo-fi video finds Beach Baby doing what they appear to do best and jamming out on a glittery gold community hall stage, the lighting somehow shadowy and bright at the same time. With a debut record in the making having signed to Island recently, we’re eagerly awaiting what Beach Baby have in store for 2016.