It’s time for your weekly dose of the hottest new musical visuals, and this week we’ve got a bit of everything, including healthy doses of nostalgia, action and surrealism. Some of these videos are truly cinematographic while others are a bit of fun, either way they’re made for solid viewing, so you best pull up a seat.
Kllo – Sense
First up for this week’s collection of weird and wonderful videos is the new one from Melbourne duo Kllo, off their EP Well Worn. A hazy meander, the video for Sense opens with a shot of the instantly recognisable Royal Arcade off Bourke Street. From there,the duo travel through the suburb they grew up in and wrote a majority of their music and other parts of the city they hold dear – everything from a typically chilly coastal adventure to restaurants, arcades, shopping centres and blossom dappled, homely gardens. The muted tones (courtesy of the Super 8 camera the entire thing was filmed on) of the video offset the nostalgia dripped mumble of the track, the piecing together of the different locations calling to mind the duo’s knack for blending pop and r&b. Intentionally unrefined, the duo have said that the am of the video was to “capture the honest aspects of our life at the moment,” in the same way they do their music.
Rainbow Chan – Pearled Into
Headed to Sydney now with Rainbow Chan’s new visuals from her debut album Spacings. Her clip for Pearled Into is decidedly minimalist and plays with blank space. Dressed in all black, she pulls shapes around a stark white box of a room. The simplicity of the clip is captivating and calls attention to the crux of the song, which about working to rebuild yourself. With Rainbow’s angular, interpretive moves and the song’s themes, there is a wonderful marriage between the idea of dancing as though no one is watching and the line “Wear it with pride, girl/ Nothing can hurt you now”. Directed by Rainbow’s frequent collaborator Ellie Graham, the dance was choreographed by Amrita Hepi and while at first it seems simple and perhaps delicate, as it progresses it becomes clear that there is a certain strength at play here.
Tkay Maidza – Carry On ft. Killer Mike
Back down to Adelaide and we’ve got a fresh clip from the wonderfully talented Tkay Maidza. The first single off her highly anticipated, upcoming debut album TKAY (out October 28) Carry On was already a beast of a track and now it’s got a video equal parts gritty and vibrant to go with it. While the song features one half of Run The Jewels, Killer Mike, who was quoted last year singing the praises of Tkay, he doesn’t make an appearance in the clip. Rather, the video focus on Tkay and a small troupe of dancers as they switch up outfits, stomp around what looks like a makeshift photoshoot set and unashamedly make their presence known, as Tkay so often does. Filmed in London during her recent UK & European tour, the clip is a frenetic flurry of colour, style and shape that calls to mind Tkay’s live show and makes you want to dance like nothing else.
L-FRESH The Lion unBECOME ft. Jimblah
While Sydney’s L-FRESH The Lion has just finished a national tour, that doesn’t mean he isn’t taking time off. He’s just dropped the video for his Jimblah featuring track unBECOME. A captivating gray scale simplicity, the clips follows L-FRESH and Jimblah as they explore the implications of burnout that is often experienced by activists and social workers. Speaking about the concept, L-FRESH said that upon first approaching Jimblah to feature on the track, they spoke about “balancing your own expectations with other people, including you own community’s… We’d spoken about all of this a few times in the past.” The song itself discusses the anxiety that can come with trying to balance all those expectations while still doing the work to be a better person every day and how “many times, we are our own worst enemies.” The stripped back approach to the video allows the lyrics to really come across on their own.
Ta-ku & Wafia – (m)edian
Not content with selling out a New York date on their maiden US voyage, for their next trick Australian duo Ta-ku and Wafia have presented not one, not two, but three new videos for an EP they’ve titled (m)edian. Comprising of three tracks, the videos were co-directed by Ta-ku (his debut) with Collider’s Damon Cameron. A surreal, a cool-toned three part series, videos for the songs Treading Water, Meet in the Middle and the inescapable Love Somebody make up (m)edian. As the videos progress, we follow a number of central characters on their strange adventures that are best explained through simply watching the videos themselves. A highly stylized aesthetic which showcases Ta-ku as a multi-talented and yet utterly focused artist, the series feel more like a short, wordless and wonderfully perplexing film than video clips.
Sampha – Blood On Me
The international entry for this video roundup comes courtesy of one of the most intriguing acts out of the UK, singer-songwriter Sampha. Having collaborated extensively with a number of widely acclaimed artists (we’re talking everyone from FKA twigs and SBTRKT to Beyonce, Kanye West and Frank Ocean), Sampha has given us a frankly stunning piece of film which cuts together a number of threatening and somewhat bizarre scenarios. Perhaps most fitting thematically is the shot of Sampha running on a greyhound track before eventually collapsing, however it is the dramatic ending to the entire piece that tends to stick with you, giving off a sort of Weasley’s-flying car-meets-macabre-Green-witch vibe.
Pixx – Grip
Also out of the UK is the new offering from Pixx (real name Hannah Rodgers), titled Grip. The song is lifted from her debut album slated for release early next year. Through a series of angular yet fluid movement and a forever twisting and turning camera, the song shows Pixx in what appears to be an abandoned home. Of the song and video, which seems to defy gravity, she said that “we go through life facing backwards, moving forwards without a clue what is in front of us.” much in the way we did watching the video, she said that is a concept she finds herself getting lost in.
Flatbush ZOMBiES – Trade-Off
Finally, we wind things up in Shanghai with the new video from Flatbush ZOMBiES and the short film that provides the visuals for their track Trade-Off. Titled 65 to Life, the film was written and directed by British filmmaker Jayga Rayn and produced by his Shanghai-based production house. The video follows a, perhaps unlikely, duo as they embark on a night’s wicked antics. From a convenience store hold up to the drunken outing that ensues to the call into work the next morning, the film is fast-aced and utterly frenetic and makes for entertaining, enthralling viewing.
Image: Pixx (supplied)