pick a piper: all her colours.

Long story short: I’ve been waiting three years for Pick A Piper to release a full length album. And my dreams are coming true.

I first wrote about Pick A Piper three years ago, and since then they’ve maintained a justifiable position of glory in my regular iTunes rotation. Created by Caribou’s Brad Weber, he oversees the highly collaborative outputs of Pick A Piper with friends like Angus Fraser, Dan Roberts and Ruby Suns’ Ryan McPhun. The first glimpse into the new record came two months ago with the release of Weber and McPhun’s track “Lucid in Fjords.”

 

Then the gifts kept coming, and three weeks ago they announced their first full-length LP “All Her Colours.” I mean, c’mon: the album has “colours” in the title. It’s like they’re doing this just for me! Though I fell in love with Pick A Piper because of their randomly complex beats and use of eclectic organic sound-makers (find me anything as dance-worthy that also has a glockenspiel in it, I dare you…), Weber has a deft ear and his recent shift to more production-based, synthetic sounds has only served to make the new tracks even more exciting. He’s playing again with one of my favourite themes in all of art – the digital organic – and here he creates, twists, delays and reverbs lines of aural magic that, though digital, sound like they were first formed in nature. The kind of fantastical magical nature you usually only to get to visit while dreaming or high or both.

I’ve waited to post about the new record hoping we’d get a video to promote the release, and today, oh happy day, they delivered a visual just as complex and interesting as their music. Directed and animated by Matt Yarrington and Sara Winters, the video for the album’s title track “All Her Colours” (with fellow Caribou member John Schmersal on vocals) is the perfect animated trip. Any video with a heroine who mixes her own potion in a blanket fort in the park and ends up riding prisms through outer space is right up my alley. I already loved the video, but I loved it more after reading some of Yarrington’s background for the vid as told to MTV Hive: “It is intended to portray color and light itself, personified as a female human and broken into a collection of archetypal aspects of the ‘oneself,’” he says. “Each color is like a vital center of the whole. The shadow character is the negative aspects of a ‘Macrocosmic Oversoul,’ who, in an effort to harness the power of light and wreak havoc, has trapped ‘White Light’ in a prism and refracted her into the individual colors of the visible spectrum.” 

So, basically, I love Yarrington as much as Weber now.

“All Her Colours” is out on Mint Records on April 2 and is up for digital/vinyl pre-order now.

feist + martin de thurah: the bad in each other.

I first fell in love with Danish director Martin de Thurah after his disturbingly glorious video for Fever Ray’s “When I Grow Up.” His gritty, realistic hand-held style is a perfect match for the dark undertones in Feist’s “The Bad In Each Other.” It’s a marriage made in video heaven.

matthew dear + morgan beringer: in the middle (i met you there).

The stable of amazing musicians on Ghostly International’s roster never fails to impress, and along with the audio they’ve also promoted their artists with consistently beautiful videos.

Their latest, directed by Morgan Beringer and promoting Matthew Dear’s Headcage EP, is a gorgeous, metallic, slithering, opalescent mess of wonderful goo.

 

The only thing that kinda bums me out is that it reminds me a bit too much of Robert Seidel’s legendary 2006 masterpiece for Zero 7’s Futures.

fla + the freaks: the loner.

I’ve been waiting for this. A short while ago I posted about the trailer for this little gem. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, but something about it resonated with me. I’m more than happy to report that the full-length video is just as exquisitely realized and heart-achingly simple as I’d hoped.

Directed and animated by FLA, I was blown away by the use of variety of perspectives and the amount of detail. I’ve watched again and again,  each time seeing new things and each time feeling a little more filled with a wonderful yearning.  At the end of the day, what a truly remarkable thing it would be to have someone (or some small pink monster-dog thing) fight to love you despite all your faults. To me, The Loner is about the power of realizing you need something when you want it the least and the possibility inside us all to turn around one day and decide to become, in small steps, a better version of yourself. I actually gasped at one point, which is how you know it’s damn good. When it was over I realized how much I didn’t want it to end, which I think it some of the highest praise I can give.

quick + dirty #2: red song, camouflar, we float and bad choices.

Quick + Dirty is back with a hot list of videos I think you need to see…

suuns: red song.

galaxie + mathieu cyr: camouflar.

my first earthquake + satan’s pearl horses: we float.

shout out out out out + a.j. bond + chris von szombathy: bad choices.

hudson + dropbear: against the grain.

Before we continue, I need you to know something about me: I take art supplies very seriously. Always have, always will. I obsessed over markers, cried over broken crayons and openly coveted my Dad’s set of Prismacolour pencil crayons that he would sometimes let me touch, but never draw with, because they had metallics in them. I repeat, METALLIC PENCIL CRAYONS.

In Grade 3, my Mom, in some sort of  back-to-school buying haze, bought me the 20-pack of Laurentians instead of the 24-pack I’d clearly requested. Then, in her bloodlust to shut me up and get me back in school already, she acted like it was no big deal. This was unacceptable. I needed the extra four colours. One was robin’s egg blue. What was I supposed to do; draw with the ultramarine and peacock blue at the same time and hope for the best? Obviously not. So, I promptly rode my bike to the local drug store and was almost immediately caught shoving the 24-pack down the front of my pants. It seemed like the only logical thing to do at the time. I was trapped in an A Time To Kill-esque moral dilemma and the only solution that made sense was to just steal the extra four. There was simply no other way.

Long story short (too late!) this is all to say that pencil crayons are the undeniably awesome tools of youth and memory, and this nifty stop-mo vid for Hudson’s “Against The Grain” by animator/filmmaker Dropbear is making me feel like stealing something. Wait, I mean… drawing… with pencil crayons. Yeah. That’s it.

(I also punched my fist through my Lite Brite once because I was one peg away from completing the Clown Face and discovered that I was missing the last peg. It was an insurmountable tragedy at the time, and I resorted to violence. I was four years old. But that’s a story for another time…)

+ via Vimeo Discover

glasser: ring.

Never underestimate the power of good cover art. I might have passed over Glasser if I hadn’t been stopped dead in my tracks by the gorgeous cover, below, to her upcoming debut album “Ring.” And that would have totally been my loss, because Glasser is basically now my favourite new thing.

The home-project pseudonym of “one-woman orchestra” Cameron Mesirow, Glasser first got some buzz after releasing her debut EP “Apply” in May 2009. Recorded in Garage Band, she clearly showed right out of the gate a natural ability to make the rough edges endearing.

But “Home”, the recently-released first single from “Ring”, is what really got me excited. The audio evolution from her EP seems so natural and the imperfect wooden percussion; swelling synth chorus; swooping strings; and dreamy, chanty call of Glasser’s voice has been on heavy rotation in my brain since I first heard it. Like siren song, I can’t shake it. And that’s a good thing.

“Ring” comes out Sept. 28 from True Panther. Pre-order here.

Here are two grainy, misty, analog-feeling vids for two tracks from her EP “Apply”:

“Apply” directed by Jacinto Astiazarán

“Tremel” directed by Sarah Enid Hagey

Via Pitchfork.

gorillaz + jamie hewlett: on melacholy hill.

Gorillaz are one of a select group of artists who continuously and relentlessly push the edge of what music videos can accomplish. Working with some of the absolute best directors and animators in the business doesn’t hurt either. They’ve never stopped evolving the visual lives of the animated personas, and in so have created a video universe where the music and the motion complement and augment each other. I still think the vid for “19-2000” (also directed by Jamie Hewlett and Pete Candeland) is one of the best animated music vids ever.

If it ain’t broke don’t fix it. Gorillaz have teamed up again with Passion Pictures‘ Hewlett and Candeland for their latest, “Melancholy Hill.” The video is, basically, fucking incredible. There were over 40 people on the crew of animators and compositors, and it shows. The attention to detail is crazy and it pays off big time. Not watching this in HD would be the equivalent of going to a top restaurant and asking for ketchup. HD it baby.

Personally, I think it looks better on Vimeo but if that one gets pulled here’s the link to the vid on Gorillaz’s YouTube channel.

Vodpod videos no longer available.

Via Feed.

great lake swimmers + nir ben jacob: river’s edge.

Worthy Polaris Prize-nominees Great Lake Swimmers are one of my favourite bands of all time.  Their music is like acoustic air. It’s billowy and expansive and makes you feel like flying. I don’t have enough organic expletives to express my love for it. If I ever get married, it will be to a track from their brilliant 2007 album “Ongiara.” I won’t say which one, because it’s mine, but if I ever have a boyfriend who figures it out I’ll go down on one knee there and then.

Their latest, 2009’s “Lost Channels” makes me feel everything good and slow in the world. It’s sunshine and fresh-mown grass and cold beer and long eyelashes and that feeling that when you’re done what you’re doing you’ve got somewhere better to go – all rolled into songs.

Matching the subtlety and earthy eloquence of “River’s Edge”, director and animator Nir Ben Jacob has created a video inspired, literally, by wood. Carved and thatched, the visuals unfold and evolve like building blocks and move in time with the track like musical carvings. The result is a gorgeous vid that reaches out, like branches, and wraps itself around you.

Vodpod videos no longer available.

I found this quote from Jacob on Video Static. It made me love the video even more:

“About a year ago I stumbled on these old wood-chip plate compositions my late grandfather made. They’re a beautiful example of early Israeli-Yemenite art. As soon as I saw them I knew I had to animate them. They had been in storage for decades so it meant a great deal to bring them out and breathe life into them. This was an opportunity to not only contribute to his work, but also expose it to the audience it never had. It is the official video.”

If you’re into Jacob’s style, then check out his equally killer vid for The Walkmen’s “On The Water”:

Vodpod videos no longer available.

caribou + video marsh: odessa.

There are very few things I’m as excited about this Spring as Caribou’s upcoming “Swim”, scheduled to drop April 20. Caribou (and now drummer Brad Weber’s amazing, percussion-crazy side project Pick A Piper) is one of my favourite musical entities ever. I hesitate to call them a “band”, because I feel that they’re more than that. An evolution of instrumentation and style that puts them one step ahead.

The “Odessa” mp3 was released online a little while ago, but I’ve been waiting for the video before posting. Happy days are here, thanks to Video Marsh, with a hazy, soft, memory-filled video. The video is very open to interpretation, which I like; it’s evocative but extremely unspecific. To me, it’s like the feeling you get from a smell: undeniably strong but hard to necessarily put into words.

I’m sure Caribou (or any artist really) doesn’t want to be categorized or pegged to a nationality, but I love how Canadian this footage is. They’re not playing stereotypes but they’re not shying away from the winter-ness that we all intrinsically know.  It’s our secret handshake, and they’re offering a hand. Like looking at an old $2 bill; nobody would totally get it but us.

Vodpod videos no longer available.

Via Stereogum

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