Laura Marling

Slow Turismo, Corners

This track caught our attention a while back. The delicate vocals, gently growing ambience and the beautifully contrasted guitars came together to create something very cool. Now, they’ve got a video clip to accompany the single; a hazy, blurry-eyed kaleidoscope of scenes and people and nightlife and colour. As the track blooms and the video progresses, it starts to get weirder and more eerie, with tripped out camera effects and the kind of double-vision shake you get when you’ve had a few too many.

Scattered Clouds, Enchanteresse

This track is eerie, dark and phenomenally strange. The video clip can be described in exactly the same way. An intentionally befuddling montage of paint, flowers and so on set the scene, before an extremely creepy sad clown interweaves with clips of a somehow even creepier school classroom, in which some of the kids also have clown makeup. And that’s only the first two minutes.

I’m not really sure what’s going on. I think my brain just exploded a bit, but in the best way possible. If you like this sound, check ’em out here.

Laura Marling, Gurdjieff’s Daughter

It will surprise many people to discover that I’m a very big Laura Marling fan. Accessible folk-pop? I know. Anyway, she’s got a new album out, and here’s the video from the single Gurdieff’s Daughter, a simple and lovely track with a great Dire Straights-ish vibe. In the clip, she shows the world her California – her friends, her home, her bed. Parts of it really make her look like a kind of therapist, reassuring people and helping them out, which is interesting considering the subject matter.

Shelley Segal, Sidelined

Shelley Segal is an upcoming Melbourne pop artist, with a folk-inspired sound and a beautiful message in her new single Sidelined. The track has a really great rhythm, and a kind of acoustic, sugary blues vibe overall. The video clip starts off with Segal, unkempt and sans makeup. She sings about how her love interest is only interested in finding a “skinny lover.” “If you’re not beautiful you’ll be sidelined…. I thought love was supposed to be blind,” she sings. As the video goes on, her hair is tended to and makeup artists start painting up her face. Lipstick, blush, the whole shebang. Later on there’s a really powerful shot of the unmade Shelley standing in a mirror next to made up Shelley. It really hits home. A powerful and catchy song about body image, with a beautiful, really interesting video clip. My winner for the week.

Catlips, Fade

By now, the name Catlips is everywhere, so I’m sure you know who we’re talking about. With her relentlessly modern sound and ultra-hip image, the video clip for Fade is exactly what you might expect; it playfully uses colour and gender to create something weird, very interesting and super psychedelic (not sure if it’s a good or bad trip, but a trip nonetheless.) It all culminates after the two-minute mark, when a weird orgy ensues, after which each character join together for dancing, fan-waving and, apparently, worshipping a mini-fridge.

Ben Wright Smith, No One

This track is new yet so familiar, I get this crazy nostalgic vibe which demands my attention as much as the beauty of the track itself. Anyway, the video clip for Ben’s track No One features a middle-aged man learning martial arts on what looks like a really gorgeous deserted island. He’s zen. He’s in the moment. And every now and then, he’s seeing a hazy Ben Wright Smith’s face and angel-hair floating in the air, singing. He meditates and focuses hard, until he overcomes his faults and seemingly becomes a master of the sport. What a fucking legend.