Chris Cohen - Monad | Video Feature

Even if you are not familiar with his name you have most likely heard the work and playing of Chris Cohen at some point in the past fews years. He has been in the background, both as a live member and active contributor, of countless memorable groups such as Deerhoof, White Magic, The Curtains, Haunted Graffiti, & Cass McCombs to name only a few. It is easy to understand why so many folks seem to gravitate towards him as his own music is a thoughtfully crafted affair that is sip away into. There is nothing abrasive that strikes out at the listener, everything seems to fit right into place, & moreover "Monad" feels like meeting an old dear friend for the first time in years. The song feels is perfect for slipping into the 
Chris Cohen's cohesive and sonic mastery as displayed throughout "Monad" are mirrored in the subtly breathtaking beauty of its visual accompaniment.  The music video directed by Kate Dollenmayer creates a visual cohesion through it's sly reference to Cohen record jacket for Overgrown Path. The abstract and shifting black and white patterns evoke only the album cover and shifting nature in Cohen songwriting. Someone can get sucked into watching this on repeat and may come out it feeling as though they've been to some hypnotist and unloaded all of their emotional baggage without realizing it. A fresh start perhaps...
Chris Cohen's "Monad" is taken from his debut full-length album Overgrown Path available now via Captured Tracks.

DIVA - Inverted Image | Video Feature

Diva returns with a refined version of the lullaby atmospheric song craft that she has previously presented on The Glitter End. This time Diva Dompé has updated her recording process or something as "Inverted Image" offers a much clearer and dare I say studio sounding version of her work and it suits her well. The subtle and haunting melodies created here all rest upon the bed of a slowly grooving bass line & the small flutter and squelch of synths.

The video does a fantastic job at capturing Diva's fairytale nature. It is presented through a monochromatic lens that creates a sharp vision of a world that could be taken from the dreams of a child. Dompé travels throughout singing and swaying throughout the lullaby groove and shimmering world that has been created around her.

Diva's album Moon Moods is  available now on cassette via Leaving Records and CD & Vinyl via Critical Heights.

Neil Young & Crazy Horse - Walk Like A Giant | Video Feature

It's a strange thing to begin discussing Neil Young & Crazy Horse's latest offering in the form of the video for "Walk Like A Giant". There are few words or adjectives that feel comfortable using while writing this. These are folks that need no introduction to almost anyone alive in the western world today. These guys are walking legends, influenced others influences, have created lasting records that will continue to grow in their scope for days to come. To top things off is that their new material stands on the same ground as anything from the past. 
The video for "Walk Like A Giant" starts out depicting grainy images of legends of the North American landscape of a real and cryptozoological nature before slipping into some psychedelic kaleidoscopic visions. The video only features a portion of the song's  epic track length but maintains the same punch if in a condensed "5-hour energy" kind of way. It may just be small shot to consume but will keep you going for some time to come. Young and company prove that they are able to pick up whenever they last left off and the searing guitar solos only cement this fact. It is hard not to sit back and bask in the glory this classic group are still able to conjure up. 
Neil Young & Crazy Horse's newest album Psychedelic Pill will be available via Reprise Records this October 30th.

Slim Twig - Altered Ego | Video Feature

Slim Twig has the flair of a 60's showman without question. Perhaps he was born into the role as fate would have it but that may be a different story altogether. "Altered Ego" taken from Twig's latest album makes its entrance with an energy drum solo before mellowing out into the song natural pace. Anyone that begins a single with a drum solo is definitely making a statement and probably knows how to use an exclamation point. The demented Elvis croon (a compliment in this instance) which comes afterwards ushering in the song's structure breaths over a slinky bassline that etches a deep groove in the listeners eardrum.

The video itself, which was directed by George Fok, presents Twig putting on full rockstar regalia. Set in a strange space reminiscent (or maybe it is! Only those who know know) of an art-gallery making Slim Twig and his creepy companions seems that much more epic in the nonchalant rampage that follows. "Altered Ego" displays the same classic pop sound on mood stabilizers vibe that he's been building up too with his recent work. It is a sound that will stay bouncing around your head long afterwards.

Slim Twig's full length album Sof' Sike is available now via Paper Bar Records.

Silent Servant - A Path Eternal | Video Feature

Noise is knocking on the doors of techno and techno is just knocking back. There has been a good bit written and discussed recently about musicians operating in the noise and drone underground making forays into a more dance friendly or at least groove oriented music. It is as if suddenly the sounds of minimal techno are have slowly crept into the subculture. As such it is fantastic to see the "crossover" continue with Hospital Productions release of Juan Mendez's Silent Servant. Mendez has been involved with first class techno label which lends an

Silent Servant's ice cold production lends itself well to the darker and more occult side of Hospital Productions material and fan base. The sparse composition of "A Path Eternal" plays out like some subtle and creeping soundtrack to the dystopian film near you, or rather the incantation used to raise the dead.

Silent Servant's album Negative Fascination is available now via Hospital Productions.

Father Finger - Temper | Video Feature

Glamor by way of punk or minimal wave by way of the 21st century bedroom musician may be an apt descriptor for Father Finger. Kylie Lance's (aka Father Finger)  "Temper" is a driving almost retro minimal synthpop tune that takes cues from the darker more occult site of the pool. You are more likely to find elements of Psychic TV's acid house period than anything New Order or say ever did. Just like much of the classics of the genre this is some outsider and punk inspired music. 
The video created by Christine Jones matches the spirit of DIY experimentalism that Lance's music rests upon. There is grainy VHS-like footage that has a bewitching nature to it through constant changes in speed and reversals of the film. The outsider and cold characteristics of "Tempter" is also brought further to life in the footage of modern day alienation. Lance and company travel throughout some tourist infested boardwalk seemingly utterly out of place wearing all black with matching lipstick.   
Father Finger's self-titled debut album is available now via Not Not Fun Records. Also be sure to catch her upcoming tour dates including a large handful with Maria Minerva. 

White Hills - I Write a Thousand Letters | Video Feature

There are some psychedelic rock bands that are able to so thoroughly overcome the stagnant and repetitive niche that can so easily overcome lesser groups working within the genre. It is something akin to an act of nature or divine inspiration that allows some musicians to move beyond the potential and easily unavoidable pitfalls. After a few years of activity White Hills come equipped with just enough carnal energy and stoic demeanor to catapult them into not only mainstays of the scene but also puts them in league with other current innovators such as Wooden Shjips or Psychic Ills. 
Their video for "I Write a Thousand Letters", taken from the groups most recent full-length Frying On This Rock, does quite a bit to prove how far White Hills have come. The group are shown at the height of stylization bobbing, weaving, & playing guitar solos in slow-motion to the sounds of screaming guitar lines, pounding drum rolls, and the occasional burst of keyboards.  The video directed by Delo Creative is a sublimely epic affair that is able to match the group's menace and sense of mystery. 
White Hills album Frying On This Rock is available now via Thrill Jockey Records. 

Spectre Folk - Please Come Home | Video Feature

Over the years Spectre Folk has mutated and matured into one of the finest dare I say "all star" groups in recent memory. Pete Nolan and company, usually ranging from Pete Meehan, Steve Shelley, Aaron Mullen, & Mark Ibold among others inhabit some sacred space left behind from the glory days of classic slacker / stoner rock. The group has become a smoke covered beast compared to it's earlier days as the more hermetic solo venture of Nolan (though it was equally shrouded in a cloud of herbal smoke). 
The video for "Please Come Home", taken from Spectre Folk's latest full-length The Ancient Storm, show the band in their element so to speak. It combines a mixture of live video from the band and shots from the open road. Spectre Folk are in fine form in the recording which tightens up their loose folk-rock aesthetic. I must also note that the video was recorded at one of my favorite DIY venues in Brooklyn, NY Big Snow. It all plays out like some whacked out home movie that fits the vibe perfectly. 
Spectre Folk's album The Ancient Storm is available now via Vampire Blues Records. 

You'll Never Get To Heaven - It's All Over | Vide Feature

You'll Never Get To Heaven's track "It's All Over" is about as romantic as the first snow fall on a cold winter night. Everything seems to be on it's way out. The daylight quickly evaporates leaving the landscape a bit more barren. This is all possibly funny or daunting think about as the summer is gently beginning to ebb towards the fall. Regardless melancholia knows no boundaries and there are those who can use a little something to slow down these fast times.

"It's All Over" is mesmerizing in it's simplicity, in it's subtlety. The song structurally rests upon a slowly loping looped sample that seems to be primarily made up of a piano or synthesizer. The focus quickly turns to the bedroom soft vocals which shrouded in reverb becomes part of the sonic landscape then offering any direct narrative flow. After a guitar line sweeps into the mix just in just he right manner picking everything up even for just a second the listener nears the ending which fades out into oblivion. You can take reference points such as Shoegaze and what seems to have become a bastard genre title as of late Slowcore (maybe this is for good reason). But these references only go so far before becoming lost in some dark winter night of their own.

You'll Never Get To Heaven's debut full-length will be available for pre-order this September 6th via Divorce Records.

Naomi Punk - Burned Body | Video Feature

Naomi Punk create anthemic music that takes as much . The press release for their most recent album The Feeling cites influences such as The Mortal Coil, Nirvana, & The Wipers which give some clue into where these kids are coming from. Yet it is not as though their regurgitating the past in their refreshing blend of punk with hints of shoegaze and undercurrents of classic gothic rock of days past. They prove to fit perfectly within this new age of punk music that includes the likes of Iceage or even The Men to name a few. 
"Burned Body" demonstrates all of this with fiery passion and immediacy. The stark black and white stop motion video which accompanies the track presents the band in a highly stylized light and consistently obscured by bouquets of flowers or their turned away from the camera as if it would eat their souls. The video created by Robin Stein, Margaret Jones, & Jesse Brown matches the angular beauty of the song and presents some rather gifted filmmakers. If this doesn't command your attention then I'm not sure much contemporary "rock" music will be able to get you going.  Naomi Punk's "Burned Body" is available now on their sophomore album The Feeling available now via Couple Skate Records. 

Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti - Only In My Dream | Video Feature

From underground wild card to indie rock institution Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti has come a long way since first came to the public eye with reissues of albums The Doldrums, Worn Copy, & House Arrest on Animal Collective's Paw Tracks label. Since then it appears like a whirlwind of a life for the unlikely star Ariel Pink has become. Now back with the follow up to 2010's Before Today the album Mature Themes seems to take it's title to heart.  
"Only In My Dreams" proves that Pink and co. still aren't through creating some of the most compelling "Pop music" out there today. The song takes from the spectrum of pure AM radio gold and the abstract jangle classic new wave to new heights. While the music production is considerably more hi-fidelity than earlier efforts the video created by Travis Peterson, who has also made music videos for the likes of Vivian Girls & Nite Jewel among others, harkens back to days of past. Throughout Pink's struggle to find and keep love is perfectly matched by Peterson's somewhat grainy VHS like footage. Let some nostalgic melancholy begin.

Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti's new album Mature Themes is available now via 4AD.

Test House - Love is Not Enough | Video Feature

To quote the late great Sonny Bono "and the beat goes on."  The same can be said for Peter Schuette and James Elliot who find themselves under the moniker Test House. The duo find themselves working within a familiar territory that each have explored in previous projects (Schuette in Silk Flowers, Peter's House Music, & for a time Psychobuildings, while Elliot has been involved with Bear in Heaven & School of Seven Bells) some sleek and retro electronic dance music.

A quirkiness and humor permeates throughout "Love Is Not Enough" something that the video renders loud and clear. It is not even a bad thing. People take themselves all too seriously sometimes,  which results in an overall blandness in the scheme of things. Here Test House sound like a self-conscious and relatively lo-fi New Order. Peter Schuette and James Elliot don't even sound pretentious in the process.

Test House's Bite Marks is available now via All Hands Electric.

Golden Retriever - Canopy | Video Feature

As a new rover lands on Mars and mankind continues our inexhaustible search a new video also drops for Golden Retriever. It's not that the duo of Jonathan Sielaff & Matt Carlson are constant space explorers (in a literal or figurative sense) but similarities remain. Sielaff and Carlson's compositional techniques revolve heavily around their use of technology with traditional instrumentation, as evidence in their primary instruments being the modular synth and bass clarinet. It is as if one is needed to expand the knowledge of the other and allow for a more fruitful and relationship of coexistence.
For all of the spaced out nature of Golden Retriever's work it can perhaps be said that even down to their name the duo are truly interested in and capable of exploring the depths of the human condition. The video for "Canopy" itself can be read as a directed effort towards living in this world we can Earth.  Filmmaker Jeff Guay presents a beautifully rendered environment full of organic life in the Columbia Gorge located in the northwestern United States.  It's subtle narrative follows a lone individual making his way down and through this forest environment down to the river's clear and dark water. 
This is not to say it's a straight shot as the camera rests for long moments to gaze into the rhythms of the natural world.  Guay matches the evolving complexities of Golden Retriever's music and provides instants of meditative relaxation, or depending on the viewers state of being I could saying realization, clarity even. It is as if Sielaff and Carlson have come full circle and with the help of Guay are offering up a means of coexistence, one both stunning in it's subtlety and moving in it's simplicity. 
Golden Retriever's album Occupied with the Unspoken is available now via Thrill Jockey. 

Sidi Touré - Ni See Ay Ga Done | Video Feature

Again the sounds of North Western Africa, and more specifically the Sahel region in Mali in particular here, bleed out into the world's musical vocabulary. This time it is Sidi Touré who is stepping out and shedding light on the beautiful heritage and roots of real blues music. "Ni See Ay Ga Done" offers an energetic look into the acoustic folk of the region. Guitars strum and creating a weave of complex picking patterns, the pitter patter of percussive elements float in the background while Touré's voice comes out front and center leading the listener through it all.

The video in all it's highly saturated color creates a blurry montage of Touré's homeland. Through all the beauty and exotic (at least to these American eyes) landscapes and architecture the region seems to stand at a dichotomy of vast introspection and deeply communal living. A way of life made out of necessity rather than some idyllic vision of escapism and romance. This fact is driven home when we are able to address to the true horrors that northern Mali and Touré's home country are facing. Severe drought, revolution, and extremist political and religious thought have dominated Mali's northern country forcing even the longtime Tuareg inhabitants who have been engaged in a decades long conflict with the government over creating a sovereign state to enter into an even fiercer battle with Islamist extremists vying for control of the area. A sad state of affairs and one that does not aide the plight of the local people in such a time of hardship.

Sidi Touré's second full-length album Koïma is available now via Thrill Jockey.

LA Vampires By Octo Octa - Freedom 2k | Video Feature

LA Vampires By Octo Octa's newest single "Freedom 2k" sounds like a manifesto or sounding bell of victory for 100% Silk. The scene & aesthetic have been closely cultivated since the label's inception last year, riding heavy on a smooth and sexy style of four-to-the-floor house the label also spreads it's wings with a grab bag variety of 90's dance musics sure to bring back bits of blissful nostalgia.

The accompanying video sees a stoic knit crew of fashionably dressed voguing at their best. Amanda Brown, aka LA Vampires, is spellbinding in her utter sincerity. Her dance moves and constantly rotating outfits and hairdos never make her blink an eye, something which seems like it would have been hard at times. It's hard to maintain a serious composure when what you're creating is at once it's own statement while also a painstakingly obvious look back into dance music's past. Yet Octo Octa's beat keeps things moving and engaging as beat drop in and out tastefully building and relieving tension with ease.

LA Vampires By Octo Octa's "Freedom 2k" is available now via 100% Silk.

Wet Hair - Camouflage | Video Feature

It's about that time of year for a new Wet Hair album and low and behold the gods have shown down upon us.  Spill Into Atmosphere sees the group on their 4th album and generally keeping at what they do best. The core duo of Shawn Reed and Ryan Garbes are joined by the addition of Justin Tye on bass. Tye manages to add just the right amount of melodic low end to keep things moving and embellish the simple keyboard hooks and krautrock chug of Garbes drums.

Lineup changes and the like aside drastic stylistic shifts is not what Wet Hair are about. Over the course of their multiple full length albums, cassettes, and splits the group have been subtlety shifting towards an increasingly more refined state of new ware pop goodness. They still use the same basic ingredients but somehow each album manages to retain something unique to each, little markers that identify their overall sound and how the newest can differ from the last.The video for "Camouflage" leaves the song title at arms length exploring the natural world of ocean and plant life in a neon overlay glow. Something that leaves the viewer in the right mode to soak in the tune.

Wet Hair's is available now via De Stijl Records.

Jaws - Sufferer's Song | Video Feature

JAWS combines dark beats that sound uniquely fresh while being informed by the past. While this kind of thing has been floating around as of late few are as rare and honest as what Robert Girardin is attempting.  As such is not surprising to find he was once a member of avant-electro group Excepter. Fans of Excepter will find a lot to love here. While JAWS shares many traits in common with his former compatriots he weaves a somewhat tighter lysergic web around all the brooding synths.

Girardin occupies one surreal mindset in the video for "Sufferer's Song". It is full of slowed down dance moves ala Excepter & scenes from the next drug induced dystopian rave for one near you. But all of this is pretty perfect for the music of JAWS. Playful minimal synth lines bounce back & forth while some serious bass frequencies work out your eardrums. Pretty great stuff really.

Jaws' Stress Test is available now via Hundebiss Records.

Spiritualized - Hey Jane | Video Feature

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Whoah. I'm pretty sure that would be any sensible human's reaction after seeing "Hey Jane," the epic latest clip from old school indie-psych progenitors Spiritualized. After a heart wrenching eight minutes in the life of a transgender prostitute, a fittingly epic happy ending wipes you emotionally clean so you don't have to have your day ruined. I really don't want to say much, because watching the full video is an experience any fan of the band, or cinema in general, would really, really enjoy. So go 'head, dive on in.