Heartbreaking Bravery

A lot of music videos have found release over the first 8 weeks of 2018, with many of the more notable among them being accounted for in a recent recap. Here, the focus switches to four specific pieces: three from this year and one that wasn’t included in last year’s coverage for personal reasons (more on that below). A common link shared among these selected clips is that they’re more representative of the artist’s identities than most clips can manage. Each is worth multiple watches so let’s get to the main event.

Vundabar – Acetone

Cinema’s French New Wave movement has played a vital role in influencing some of today’s most impressive music videos and Vundabar’s deliriously charming “Acetone” can now be added to that growing list of entries. From the font selection to the color palette to the cinematography, Godard’s shadow looms over — but never entirely consumes — “Acetone”.

Vundabar, who are setting themselves up for an absolutely massive 2018, find clever ways to play with that filmic influence and merge it with other prominent touch points (B-horror and the Coen brothers among them), subverting a trend into something more distinctive. Vundabar are game throughout the clip, delivering committed performances and walking away with the bar for any future clips raised significantly higher.

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The Magic Gang – Getting Along

The Magic Gang’s “Getting Along” is the second clip on this list that draws a lot of its identity from the French New Wave movement but never ascribes to it entirely. Clever zooms littler the landscape of “Getting Along”, keeping the viewer at a distance but increasing the likelihood of them wanting to be drawn back into the action. It’s a mischievous game of cat and mouse that’s scored by a note-perfect run through some inspired powerpop that’s unafraid to dampen its edges with a little dirt. In employing time-honored traditions and molding them into something approaching post-modernism, The Magic Gang have found a rich template that should continue to serve them extremely well.

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Shame – Lampoon

The overwhelming amount of road/tour/hangout-styled music videos should indicate that they’re easy to make effectively. It’s partially true, as there’s typically minimal involvement in their original creation but it’s in the endless editing room sessions where those clips live and die. Most wind up without a heartbeat while the ones that work find a way to make an impression.

Shame’s “Lampoon” belongs to the latter category, as it works as both a standalone presentation and an effective document of the band’s identity: restless, bleary, unwilling to go away quietly, and hellbent on getting across everything it can possibly fit into its given window. Both the song and the clip work in tandem to heighten each part of the equation and still wind up with a sum that’s greater than those individual parts. Fueled by its own insistence, “Lampoon” is all but impossible to ignore.

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Slight – Routine

I’ll be writing from the first person for Slight’s “Routine” simply because of the incredible amount of personal meaning it holds for me. Last year, DBTS announced its closure as a venue, which is the first place I slept after moving to Brooklyn for a summer. It was the first place that felt like a home in New York and it accepted me — and seemingly everyone else — without question, offering an unspoken tacit approval. Slight, the project of Jim Hall (a DBTS fixture), found a way to honor that space with the heartfelt clip for “Routine”.

Helmed by a team of people who could either claim to be a permanent or honorary DBTS resident, “Routine” traces through just about every last inch of the place, securing its place — without set dressing — in the minds of the people who got to experience its meaning firsthand. From the downstairs show to the upstairs meals and hangouts to the various artistic ideas (whether it was choreography, spontaneous jam session, or just donning an outfit and having a drink), just about every good memory is presented here with a wealth of affection.

Sincere, appreciative, and shot through with a lingering sense of loss and relative displacement, “Routine” is the perfect encapsulation of what made DBTS matter. It’s a loving tribute to a place I was lucky enough to call home for a short while and even luckier to have as my first gateway into the city. While it’s taken a different shape over the past several months, it’s the version that “Routine” presents that I’ll always remember and for that — and to everyone who showed me kindness during that time — I will be eternally grateful.