I see themes in my mind—I always think of dirty bars, or places I frequent, where if I were to be stuck in the desert with $5, a knife, and a muscle car—what is the music that’s playing? Think of like, ghost towns off Route 66. A shitty weird little ghost town out of Laughlin, Arizona, or something. I want to create a vibe rather than a sound.

The vibe for “Loved One” is sexy amusement park adventures with a pretty girl, lots of grinding, glowing skulls, and a giant yellow snake on Coney Island.

“Loved One”

Check out his other awesome videos:

“Dead Wrong”

“You Rascal You”

See Hanni tonight with White Arrows at the Boobs 4 Food benefit at Mountain Bar!

—Lainna Fader

FULL SCREEN
The Sounds of VTech / Bilal Levels   

Lotus, on the concept of the video:

I originally wanted to keep visual themes with another video from my last LP called ‘mmhmm’ off of my last album.  It featured Thundercat as an intergalactic bass player in a super strange world created by ‘Special Problems’.  Since Thundercat was part of this song, I thought it could be fun to continue the visual style and feel of this space opera.  In the end you have this crazy video made of so much mixed media, geek dreams and lots of love.

Check out our review of Bilal’s Airtight’s Revenge, out now on Plug Research:

Jazz-infused R&B crooner Bilal is one of the more unfortunate casualties of major label politics. After releasing a promising, critically acclaimed debut on Interscope, the tirelessly creative singer became stuck in record company limbo when they deemed his potential follow-up unmarketable. While many of his contemporaries shot to fame over the next decade, Bilal remained in purgatory, presumably plotting a Count of Monte Cristo-esque escape from the paper prison that was his contract. Now he’s resurfaced on prominent L.A. imprint Plug Research with Airtight’s Revenge, his first officially released set of songs since 2001 and the next logical step in the Edmond Dantes plan for retribution. Bilal’s rich, soulful vocals, full of the smoky nuances and world-weary imperfections that characterize the most heartbreaking torch singers’ voices, is still very much intact as is his musically adventurous spirit. The six-minute “Who Are You” begins as a wistful ballad with heavily processed drums building tension towards a cathartic, driving middle section before morphing into a reggae-flavored jam session. The gritty syncopations and impassioned falsettos of “All Matter” recall a more youthful, less facetious Cee-Lo if he were on a Marvin Gaye kick. From a precocious 21-year-old fresh out of music school to a thirty-something seeking to avenge a career left hanging out to dry by an unforgiving industry, Bilal has proven that he has the talent and the passion to consistently craft enjoyable yet challenging R&B tunes. Airtight’s Revenge is evidence that he has a lot more good music ahead of him and a reason to make Interscope executives regret letting him go.

—Amorn Bholsangngam

Not too long ago there was an article about the state of music videos in some relevant culture magazine. The alt suits were basically saying at print time (last year) that it was the best time to make music videos because of no budgets. That was the dumbest shit I have ever heard. If you have never even had money the decline doesn’t affect you. On a REAL level of video making, you are concerned with spending less of your own money and not going to jail. Aside from these videos, this year sucked for videos. Rap videos this year were shit. Rappers are amazing. They go to jail, kill each other, and generally do ridiculous entertaining things. Yet most videos of good songs are the same car/girl/money video. Rage, Gill Green and Hype all need to be in time out. What Needs To Die: VHS videos or VHS video effects/artifacts are the visual equivalents to Auto-Tune. Doing a shitty low budget video that looks VHS is one thing, but actually paying money to make your images look crappy is mind-boggling. Here are some of the year’s best videos that sucked less, in order from when I saw them.
—Paul Rodriguez

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5bsXOcK9_Cw]
Depeche Mode ‘Wrong’ (Patrick Daughters)
This is the best thing Patrick Daughters has written since he made Karen O and everyone else cry when he did ‘Maps.’ The cinematographer Shawn Kim photographs downtown L.A. in a realistic beautiful way. Throw in a Liar as your main character and have Spike Jonze being hit by a car for a nice touch.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zol2MJf6XNE]
Animal Collective ‘My Girls’ (Knowmore Productions)
When I first saw this I hated it. Then I realized it was okay. Then compared to everything else this year it got better. AC’s visual presentation is crazed and they are on their own shit. The best AC video is “Water Curses.”

Kanye West ‘Welcome to Heartbreak’ (NABIL)
Kanye’s sweater is dope in this video. I don’t care you hate him. He did “Jesus Walks” with Chris Milk and he has Michel Gondry doing his alternate videos that barely get seen. This video’s visual device is called data moshing. When Kanye found out about Ray Tintori’s clip for Chairlift with data moshing they pushed up ‘Welcome To Heartbreak.’ Artist Takeshi Murata is known for data moshing so when two video clips came out by the same production company some NY art people were crying.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ek3coSedm7o]
Bat For Lashes ‘Pearl’s Dream’ (Nima Nourizadeh)
In this mystic drop Natasha is styled in a look directly pulled from the Margiela Spring ’09 show. Nima went so smart with the art direction and cinematography. Wolves need to be in more videos.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7WAHnZPIX0]
The Horrors ‘Sea Within A Sea’ (Douglas Hart)
I guess this would be the their musical redemption. The visual setup is simple and colorful yet perfectly fitting. Everything gets prime around 4:27.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6gHLHbYVeA]
MSTRKRFT ‘Heartbreaker’ (Vincent Haycock)
The idea of MSTRKRFT and John Legend in one song might sound horrendous if you are not a fan of either. The story is boy likes girl, but can’t have girl. You really see and feel a narrative here, which is rare for a three-minute music video spot. The casting is good (I would recast the girl, though) and has it boy model A.J. English in it. The best part of the video is when A.J. takes his sunglasses off at :40.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lt6imgDYoTg]
Wavves ‘No Hope Kids’ (Pete Ohs)
This is pretty standard guy-on-tour video except everyone hates/loves Wavves. The edit could be way better. I am for drug use in videos. Weed is a good start.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_uDoTmokUM]
White Lies ‘Death’ (Crystal Castles Remix) (Tim Walker)
White Lies: nobody cares about them in our country so they paid Crystal Castles to do a remix. Still no one cares. Technically this video is a re-edit from the original. The video is on the mundane UK suburb/Bat For Lashes ‘What’s A Girl To Do’/Donnie Darko vibe. The best shot is at 3:25. I could do without the shitty Photoshop glowing effect.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4OhRVn_b80]
Micachu & The Shapes ‘Turn Me Well’ (Cannot find director—sorry!)
This just feels right.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcqwfFKagH4]
Girls ‘Hellhole Ratrace’ (Aaron Brown and Ben Chappell)
Girls and this video are for the people. The visual device is slow motion/overcranked throughout the whole video. There have been a bunch of these over the years. Off the top of my head: the Cat Power and the Cass McCombs one. ‘Hellhole Ratrace’ has some arc to it even if it’s simple. Who doesn’t want to have fun with your friends in your city? No matter how fucked up you get, I think you will always remember the sunrise.

Yeasayer ‘Ambling Alp’ (Radical Friend)
This is the best video after Patrick Daughter’s ‘Wrong’ for ‘09. The Yeasayer visual presentation is murder and I would not expect anything less. This is the best art direction and best use of effects I have seen in a while in a video. It’s hard to make something without people acknowledging an existing visual reference. So here it goes: the running falling naked people is on Sigur Ros ‘Gobbledigook’/Ryan McGinley. ‘Gobbledigook’ shot by Christopher Doyle is easily one the best-shot videos of all time. The intro graphic shot, the mirror face guy on horse drumming, the boxers and the liquid face drips are my favorite parts. Radical Friend gets respect.

HONORABLE MENTIONS
Not next level enough/progressive, but I still like, or I just like but I don’t back it that hard.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFbE3lHTcuo]
Fuck Buttons ‘Surf Solar’ (Andrew Hung)
Once I drank all their liquor in a hotel room. One of their PR people called me drunk at 4 AM to tell me check this video again.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3uVLaGvdAKc]
Coconut Records ‘Any Fun’ (William Strobeck and Mark Gonzales)
8mm and pro skaters.

Young Dro ‘I Don’t Know Y’All’ (Gabriel Hart)
When I get drunk, I talk about who I don’t fuck with. This video is pretty fucking ridiculous.

BEST NON-MUSIC VIDEOS (OR THESE PEOPLE SHOULD MAKE A MUSIC VIDEO)

K-CoreaINC.K (section a) (Ryan Trecartin)
This is one of his two videos released in ‘09. Yes/No. This is fucked.

Hood By Air SS10 (Reid Van Renesse)
Shot in Terence Koh’s A.S.S. gallery. ZOMBY.

Gems for Arielle de Pinto (Margaret Haines)
Margaret asked me to help her work on a film, but I ended up playing a football player who wanted to fuck a slut. Her film also has progressive children, which is in right now. This clip is captured perfectly.

Binare (Marie Hanhnhon)
Pretty strong work by the youth. Zak, the dancer, plays a slave boy in my new music video for Former Ghosts.

Jail Weddings video featuring “(Do You Think We’re Gonna End Up On) Skid Row?” off their upcoming EP Inconvenient Dreams out Aug 25th on White Noise.

Download: Jail Weddings “I’m My Own Doctor”

(off Inconvenient Dreams out Aug 25th on White Noise)

VIA: dublab

Great video directed by Eli Stonberg. The song is from a new release by Daedelus on the label Friends of Friends