Three Videos!
Although the reign MTV seems long behind us, the music video still lives on the Internet as a way for artists to express their audio-visual visions in a very personal way. At Rawckus, we love how music and video can complement each other and always keep our eyes, as well as our ears, open to the newest and most dynamic videos lighting up screens big and small, including these three.
“Forgive Me” by Love Ghost
L.A.-based four-piece Love Ghost takes the hoarse and world-weary sounds of ‘90s alt-rock (post-Nevermind Nirvana) and imbue it with the cinematic swells of the viola. Considering how booming and brooding the sound is, it’s hard to believe the band’s members range from ages thirteen to fifteen. Lyrically and visually, the music video for their track “Forgive Me” (directed by Michael V. Greene) is a determined trudge through a desert, where the band’s frontman, Finnegan Seeker Bell, must confront his disillusionment from technology, religion, and self. While the concept risks becoming heavy-handed, it’s overcome by clever and surprisingly bold imagery. Love Ghost combine everyday youthful angst with a disarmingly wizened sound.
“All Alone” by Terra Lightfoot
Terra Lightfoot’s contralto voice—as husky and rustic as her roots rock sound—will stop you in your tracks. Imagine the commanding power of Cher or Amy Winehouse’s voice, intimately bathed in bar lights. The video for her the bluesy ballad, “All Alone” (directed by Angus Bruce), is beautifully simple, featuring wide-angle shots of Lightfoot singing and playing before breathtaking Scottish landscapes. Like she sings about, she’s far from her home in Hamilton, Ontario, but there’s a genuine, home-baked strength that keeps her going. The sharp twang of her guitar and the swooning backing vocals serve as the perfect pedestal for her voice, never feeling unnecessarily flashy and never leaving it in the cold. There’s not much terribly new about Terra Lightfoot’s music, but rather it feels like the necessary reincarnation of the music that rock n’ roll was built upon.
“Little Bubble” by Dirty Projectors
Heralding the release of their first album since 2012, New York art pop band Dirty Projector’s return with the video for “Little Bubble” (directed by David Longstreth and Adam Newport-Berra). The baroque/art pop Dirty projector’s has been known for since their 2002 debut has been quieted and slowed down to contain more R&B influences, with dark, soul-bearing lyrics about hopelessness and loss contrasting the moments of orchestral swells and soft, bubbly synth effects. The video intercuts extreme close-ups of singer David Longstreth with huge, natural vistas—the interpersonal contrasted with the public. Longstreth is seen sitting alone in the darkness, lit only by the screen of a tablet, and lost in a desert, wrapped in wires, as he laments the loss of intimacy, perhaps parallel with an increasingly technological world. Like the music, it’s wonderfully understated.
