In our video round up this week we have more up and coming talent than you can poke a stick at. So much so that it would be remiss not to pull up a chair in front of your laptop and get lost in this stellar selection of clips for a while. Not to mention, majority of these gems come from some of our favourite Australian acts of the moment. Get behind them and get clicking below.
Gussy – Looking at Myself
A slow languid drawl propped against a gender transcendent figure pirouetting in a black room, pensive and introspective, harnessing an undercurrent of aching that seems to be contained just beneath the surface but never quite breaks through. Such are the feels of Sydney based artist Gussy’s self produced and directed single Looking at Myself. The hypnotic track deconstructs normative ideas of gender and sexuality, while exploring the existentialism of a modern break up. It is just the beginning for these chiseled cheekbones and we look forward to hearing a lot more.
You check Gussy out in the flesh at Heaps Gay x VIVID at the Factory Theatre on June 12th, or at Oscar Key Sung’s Single Launch at Plan B, June 24th
https://youtu.be/_zJI0mdLq0M
City Calm Down – Border on Control
The latest single from City Calm Down’s acclaimed debut In A Restless House continues the anthemic and synth driven throwback sound that has propelled the band to such great heights in recent times. In the accompanying video, the metronomic drumbeat falls in time with the scene of a geriatric table tennis match, with the seemingly endless rally meditative in its repetition. The game provides an apt metaphor to accompany the themes of stagnation sung in Jack Bourke’s signature baritone vocals. The clip is not only a notable showcase of this rising act, but also of A-grade table tennis at its very best. One way or another, you will be impressed.
https://youtu.be/mUgzOlK0nC4
Coops – Frankincense & Myrhh
UK rapper Coops has just this week released his debut LP God Complex with a gritty black and white video to accompany single Frankincense & Myrrh. The track was produced by up and comer Ollie Twist, and has a moody antique vibe aided by jazz sampling and pensive lyricism. The clip, directed by Chas Appeti, builds on these themes with scratchy transitions and noir shadows at every turn. Coops provides some stellar verses and if this offering is anything to go by, the LP has lots of promise.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=My3k6vsQi6Y
Alex Cameron – Take Care of Business
Sydney’s Alex Cameron has given us a taste of his upcoming album Jumping The Shark with a surreal, mesmerising clip for single Take Care of Business. At a time when a plethora of videos released are self-describing their aesthetic as obscure or Lynchian, while kind of missing the mark, this one actually achieves the label. With Cameron’s surreal, aged performance invoking avant-garde eeriness in a remarkably endearing way, Cameron’s onstage writhing and droning vocals are reminiscent of a Birthday Party-era Nick Cave in slow motion. The introduction of keys and an increase in tempo around the three minute mark is an unexpected joyous injection, making this already loveable track all the more so. You can pre-order the album due out August 19th here.
https://youtu.be/6tGqK8_6hL4
Third Floor – Falling
The luscious beats of Third Floor’s Falling provide a palette of sounds to paint with, the accompanying clip bringing them to life with explosive movement. Figures contort in dance against a black backdrop with 3am nightclub vigor as the track ebbs and flows through the grooves. This is the last of four clips in the cinematic Dream State EP story arc, so if you want to enjoy the full experience, make sure to check out the first three instalments here.
https://youtu.be/B2xwuML2NX0
Venus II – Inside Your Sun
You might have never heard of upcoming act Venus II, but the duo that make up the band are no newcomers. Jarrad Brown (Eagle & The Worm / Dorsal Fins) and Ryan Grieve (Canyons) manage to create a fusion of layers that sounds like the perfectly combined sum of their parts, and the results are wondrous. The sundrenched infectious hooks remind me of that time when Midnight Jugganauts released 44 and Rising and I had it stuck in my head for months, driving me blissfully insane. Check out the clip, shake off the winter blues, and get psychedelic. It doesn’t get much better.
https://youtu.be/9GQHonquaqY
Banoffee – I’m Not Sorry
Banoffee makes no apologies with her latest clip, a track she says is: “a push back to all the things we’ve been told so many times we now tell them to ourselves. Woman are brought up bound and gagged in shame for being different, for giving a shit, for being ambitious—all because we’re powerful. We can’t be accused of black magic anymore, but it’s so entrenched we’re now killing ourselves to try and mentally survive. I guess I’m saying I’m done saying sorry.” It’s a strong statement with strong imagery to match from a genre defying and promising young artist.
https://youtu.be/skY9qtRIMP0
Homeboy Sandman – Eyes
Still fresh after the release of wonderful album Kindness For Weakness and subsequent videos for Nonbelievers and Talking (Bleep), comes the Stones Throw rapper’s new video for Eyes. The first thing to note is how vastly different each of his videos is stylistically. This one, directed by Pace Rivers, sees the rapper tell a spooky story, with the narrator at home – in the bath, with a woman, on the couch – spliced between ominous outdoor scenes where you see him followed and spied on at every turn. The motif of the eye carries throughout each character, scene and scenery, while the clip grows more paranoid, surreal and suspenseful as it progresses.
https://youtu.be/qkg-OMDiyG4
Image: Venus II
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:
Boys Noize – Starchild (ft. Poliça)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJCVEGvNOZc&feature=youtu.be
With fourth album Mayday just weeks away, Berlin producer Boys Noize has released the third track from that record this week Starchild. Featuring Minneapolis synth pop stars Poliça, it’s a floating, ambient track with an onion’s worth of different layers and sounds.
The video, directed by LIL INTERNET, stars Poliça frontwoman Channy Leaneagh wandering through the Miami nightlife in a clear rain poncho to a lot of inquisitive looks. Ethereal and spacy, it’s a heck of a song and video and only builds upon the already sky-high anticipation surrounding the way forward for Boys Noize.
Mayday is out May 20th on Pod via Inertia.
Third Floor – You Are The One
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nEvu6telxp4&feature=youtu.be
This is the third in a four-part audiovisual EP series from Sydney-via-Britain producer Third Floor, also known as Aaron Bannie. Dream State is his debut record and is embracing the increasingly cinematic aspects of music. The track has an 80s pop feel to it, click percussion and big synths abound with wavy warped out vocals making for a catchy hook.
The video continues the story of protagonist Rose, whose day takes a rather harrowing turn after breakfast and a trip to the beach. We won’t spoil it, but the combination of gorgeous synth pop and a dark, twisting tale are incredibly compelling.
We’re hanging on for the sure-to-be-big finale of Dream State
Pikelet – The Neighbour’s Grass
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCMiQkp6Qj8&feature=youtu.be&mc_cid=d3e25678a8&mc_eid=2a33deb84d
Winning the award for most delicious name this week is Melbourne’s Pikelet, also known as Evelyn Morris. She’s back with a brand new record in Tronc and has this week released a video from one of its tracks in The Neighbour’s Grass. Weird beats and noises scuttle behind vocals both spoken and sung, there’s a ghostly piano interlude and the sound of dishes clinking, the futuristic and the mundane mingling to surprisingly great effect.
The video looks like the testing stages of a glitchy Playstation game from the late 90s, with floating heads and blurry dancing figures making the entire experience as off-kilter as it gets.
Tronc is out digitally and on cassette tape May 6th via Chapter Music.
SAFIA – Make Them Wheels Roll
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ShOCwyT5cE
Heading to the nation’s capital for this next one with the latest single from Canberra electronic band SAFIA. Just days away from kicking off their tour of the further-flung reaches of the country as part of the Groovin’ The Moo festival, the trio have this week released the video for latest single Make Them Wheels Roll.
Slick, soulful and driving, it’s in surefire consideration already for a certain list celebrated on Australia Day. That falsetto chorus is utterly breathtaking by the way. The video, directed by Jimmy Ennett uses a whole lot of water as the protagonist, a common corporate drone, finds himself in, around and under it in some amazing shots.
Catch SAFIA at Groovin’ The Moo this weekend and next and then headlining their own tour around Australia launching Make Them Wheels Roll.
Jarbird – Iona
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvCpPj4djGk
From the week before but too good not to share is the latest video from London band Jarbird. Iona is the latest single from their debut EP Such Is The House, which dropped back on March 5th to some excellent reviews. Quirky rhythms build up to a heavenly chorus, a whirlwind of different sounds all melded together intricately to create some of the cleverest pop you’ll hear all week.
The video unfurls in quite the same way, beginning in black and white with colours trickling in as the song twists and turns. They’re only new on the block but Jarbird are an act to keep an eye on.
Such Is The House is out now via Oskar.
Clea – Dire Consequences
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=we-Hfxup5KI&feature=youtu.be
I always love featuring artists from my local Brisbane in this roundup and songstress Clea is the best from this week. Dire Consequences is a song you’ve probably heard either on the airwaves or Spotify, where it climbed to #14 on the viral charts. Stunning is the best way to describe it, I get definite Christine McVie vibes immediately, almost like the song belongs in the middle of Tango In The Night. It’s dusky and enchanting and the chorus just throttles you.
The video places the focus squarely on Clea, crooning into the camera in the dark amid showers of glitter. Add Clea to the list of phenomenal singer-songwriters coming out of Brisbane at the moment. If she’s got more of these thought-provoking lyrics and expertly-crafted melodies up her sleeve she is going to be a big name in years to come.
High Violet – Only Heart
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BeyznxOAwHA
Moving south of the border for our penultimate video is the debut track from Sydneysiders High Violet. The male and female vocal harmonies interplay tremendously, it’s charged up pop rock that sounds like it should soundtrack an 80s movie montage where the main character is toughening up.
The video was shot in High Violet’s garage, replete with music posters everywhere and an old Pac Man arcade machine that plays the original Alien vs Predator (fuck!). High Violet just… they just rock, and the sky is the limit following a debut as auspicious as this.
The Murlocs – Unknown Disease
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iot_gMqf6mU&feature=youtu.be
Wrapping up this week are one of my favourite bands in Geelong psychedelic rockers The Murlocs and their newest single Unknown Disease. It’s their latest release following their stellar sophomore LP Young Blindness that landed in March of this year.
With freaky fuzzed out guitars from a bygone era and the inimitable squawk of frontman Ambrose Kenny-Smith leading the way, Unknown Disease is one of Young Blindness’ standouts. The accompanying video is an acid trip and a fever dream of kaleidoscopic and amorphous animations over lo-fi footage of the band, the sickness described in the title is splattered all over this fantastic number. 2016 is the year of The Murlocs for sure.
Young Blindness is out now via Flightless/Remote Control.
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, of 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:
Phia – Do You Ever
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pf16XVY8qKA
Kicking this week’s edition off with a new video from Melbourne experimental duo Phia, who have put this one together in the lead up to their upcoming debut album The Ocean Of Everything. The track is pure pop at its absolute bubbliest, a nifty little kalimba melody and some pulsing synths and handclap beats anchored oh so sweetly by singer Sophia Exiner’s gentle vocals.
The video sees Phia indulging in a whole lot of arts and crafts, creating paper cutouts of some of the lyrics and throwing glitter and paint around like there’s no tomorrow. Keep an eye out for The Ocean Of Everything when it lands later this year.
Last Dinosaurs – Wurl
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XiposuP7I3Y
Returning in a massive way last year with the release of their sophomore record Wellness, Brisbane indie rock royalty Last Dinosaurs are still riding the positive waves generated by that album in the New Year, this week releasing a video for Wurl from that album.
In typical Last Dinosaurs fashion, it’s a punchy little rock song with a chorus that absolutely soars. The video has been drenched in pastel colours, the clip meshing together a whole bunch of old stock footage with shots of the band playing and conducting a few different science-y projects.
If you’re in Melbourne next week you can catch the Last Dinosaurs guys at the Melbourne Zoo as part of their Twilight Series before they head out on a tour of Indonesia and Thailand.
Bleached – Wednesday Night Melody
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2hFYgMBDPFE&feature=youtu.be
Does Howl And Echoes love us some Bleached or what. We were well and truly won over by their previous video for Keep On Keepin’ On, the lead single from their upcoming sophomore record Welcome The Worms.
The riffs are utterly gargantuan, and stomp along with the kind of raw power that would make Joan Jett grin from ear to ear. The accompanying video is a cracker too, two-thirds of Bleached in Jessie Clavin and Micayla Grace coming home to find singer Jennifer Clavin deader than disco. With a gig in Hollywood to honour, do Bleached cancel?
Fuck no they don’t, they rig Jennifer’s cadaver up with ropes and go full Weekend At Bernies with her and then tossing her to the wolves. Because of course. It’s videos like this that make writing these roundups every week an absolute pleasure.
Welcome The Worms is out April 1st via Inertia.
Little May – Remind Me
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-gB9R8FNec
Keeping with rocking all-girl groups is the new video from Little May. One of the heavier tracks on their stunning debut record For The Company that blew listeners everywhere away, Remind Me sees Little May diversifying their captivating sound and doing it well.
The video is a collaboration with renowned Sydney visual artist EARS. Matching the frenetic energy of the track, it’s awash with colour and wholly organic, a mixture of milk, water, oil and food dye apparently used in creating some of the hypnotic liquid sequences.
You can catch Little May as they support City And Colour on their Australian tour across March and April and then again on their largest ever headline tour of their own in May.
Third Floor – Thinking Of You
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-p53-A9ZfA&feature=youtu.be
Sticking around in Sydney for this next one, it’s the debut video from producer Aaron Bannie, also known as Third Floor. He has an upcoming EP Dream State that he’s putting a visual twist on, releasing its four tracks with accompanying videos as an episodic short film.
Thinking Of You marks the beginning of protagonist Charley Rose’s story, a dark romance narrative backed by a hypnotic synth-based soundtrack. Water seems to be a constant, lashings of late night rain, the waves on the beach and a dripping tap that sonically mirrors the steady click percussion grounding the track all featuring prominently.
Third Floor definitely has us hanging out for episode two.
Japanese Wallpaper – Arrival
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QLzap62rnU&feature=youtu.be
Having enjoyed 2015 and as big a breakout as a young artist could possibly hope for Melbourne multi-instrumentalist and freakish music prodigy still in his teens (!) Gab Strum, aka Japanese Wallpaper. Having just ended a huge Laneway tour, he’s this week dropped a brand new video for Arrival off of his explosive eponymous EP.
Dreamy and atmospheric, his collaboration with the extraordinary Dustin Tebbutt is given stunning visual justification here. Directed by Thomas Pollard, it features some stunning bushland shots, the video’s protagonist watching as the car that was her home spontaneously erupts in flames mesmerising and heartrending.
Japanese Wallpaper’s star looks set to skyrocket in 2016.
Skegss – Heart Attack
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSYsN8kKfpQ
Byron Bay legends Skegss are kicking off their 2016 with their latest music video. Heart Attack was the final track on their debut EP 50 Pushups For A Dollar and represented a much more mellow sound than we’re used to from Ratbag Records’ finest. It’s nonetheless become a live favourite in a very short time.
Shot in grainy black and white and evidently filmed on the road for their headling ‘A Chinese Feed And A Couple Of Beers’ tour just gone by (watch out for members of their outlandishly entertaining tour mates The Pinheads making cameos), it features the Skegss dudes and friends shredding up a skatepark and then a stage, Heart Attack providing a breezy, jangly soundtrack to a glimpse of life on the road.
Catch Skegss this weekend playing Mountain Sounds (don’t worry, they’re not clashing with Violent Soho)
DMA’s – Too Soon
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8GjEbrUHOl4
With their debut album Hills End just a week away, Sydney trio DMA’s have been extra busy in the lead-up, wrapping up a gargantuan Laneway tour last week and releasing the video for second single Too Soon.
It’s a straight up rocker from DMA’s, with a chorus that I heard bellowed straight back at the band when they played it to an unbelievably vast Laneway crowd in Brisbane. The video for it is in typical DMA’s lo-fi fashion, a mixture of shots of the band feeling the song in slow-motion on a rooftop, in a hazy pink living room, in a dark room in black and white. It captures the Britpop sound and vibe perfectly, something DMA’s have built a career on as one of Australia’s best and brightest exports.
Hills End is out next Friday, February 26th via I Oh You.