A circular music video for experimental trio Battles that starts with a spinning basketball and keeps that momentum going as it gets increasingly ambitious and heightened.
Zooey Deschanel is dancing with an invisible man. M. Ward is playing with invisible instruments. Together they make a haunting sound that's captured in a practically perfect video that deserves a place on the mantle next to "Chandelier" as one the Best of the Year.
So it was in the amazing Phoenix video "Trying To Be Cool," directed by CANADA, where both the band and the production team do it entirely live: The band plays live and the crew captures each shot without any breaks.
Imagine a funhouse designed by an acid-eater fan of Rube Goldberg, Andy Warhol and Salvador Dali. Then imagine precisely plotting out a one-take video filled with delightful nonsense. Then, halfway through, you say fuck it, and the dancers come out for a huge routine that would make Stanley Donen proud (or envious).
But, wait. Throw all that away. What's really going on here is a controlled experiment in chaos. Two cameras taking turns shooting a continous 16 beats for a one take "relay race" of a one-take video.
It's a forever escalating/exhausting war of trying to cool and get attention, with every victory more shortlived than the last. And that is a very beautiful, or scary thing.
Merely a teaser, but it's been a minute since we've seen Canada work their magic for a music video... And it looks like their erotique style is firmly intact, but with more of a sci-fi edge.
It's an impressive blast of synchronized hullaballoo in this retro and charming (and apparently seamless) video for Two Door Cinema Club. --> watch "What You Know"
The universe according to Spanish musician El Guincho and director Nicholas Mendez is sex, music and weirdness. And, weirdly enough, the more than occasional shots of nudity (boobs) are nowhere near as sexual as a lot of the other images here. Set up like some bizarro old educational film where innocent eroticism permeates each and every gag, "Bombay" is roughly 4:40 — tack on another minute if you stick around for the credits, which you probably will — of inspired gonzo sexytime. --> watch "Bombay" (NSFW)
