Heartbreaking Bravery

After a ridiculously packed month of material and a few small campaigns, this site’s nearly caught up on songs and music videos. There are 18 songs to get to and ten videos that aren’t contained in this post’s headline. What is going to be the primary focus of this post is also one of the best clips of the year (and possibly the decade) but we’ll get to that in due time. Before then, we’ll start with the lion’s share of the pre-feature coverage: single streams. Since there are so many, I won’t go into too much detail in listing the attributes that make them great, just know that they are genuinely great. In no particular order those songs are: Young Jesus’ “Dirt“, Fort Lean’s “New Hobbies“, Sweet John Bloom’s “Tell Me“, Chelsea Wolfe’s “Iron Moon“, Battle Ave.’s “Solar Queen“, Diamond Youth’s “No Control“, Colornoise’s “Amalie“, Spraynard’s “Bench“, and The Trendees’ “Motorcycles (Make Loud Noises)“. Joining that already formidable pile were Crosss’ “Golden Hearth“, Jack + Eliza’s “Oh No“, Elliot Moss’ “VCR Machine“, Lull’s “Bubble Tea“, Porcelain Raft’s “All In My Head“, Stranger Wilds’ “Pronoia“, Ezra Furman’s “Lousy Connection“, Mike Viola’s “Stairway to Paradise“, and Inheaven’s “Slow“.

Much like the songs listed above, the music videos over the past week or so have covered a similarly expansive musical spread. Among these videos were Something Anorak’s absurdly lush “I Am A Doctor“, Heaters’ retro dancehall exhibition “Mean Green“, ANAMAI’s extremely unsettling “Half“, Iron & Wine’s surprisingly beautiful indie wrestling fever dream “Everyone’s Summer of ’95“, and Palma Violets’ gleefully raucous “English Tongue“. Also included in this run were Ceremony’s stark career highlight “Your Life In France“, Jamie xx’s slow-burning, jaw-dropping “Gosh“, Death From Above 1979’s wild-eyed Amish party clip “Virgins“, The Rentals’ eerie, foreboding “It’s Time To Come Home“, and “Keep Your Stupid Dreams Alive“-  a comically psychedelic animated adventure from The Prefab Messiahs. And then there was Bent Denim’s devastating, unforgettable “Good Night’s Sleep“.

Abortion has always been- and likely always will be- a difficult subject to address. Treatment either empathetic or unerringly sympathetic has rendered some recent works (like last year’s outstanding Obvious Child or The Antlers’ wrenching “Bear“) into pieces of art equipped with a lasting resonance. It’s the same reason that Ben Folds Five’s “Brick” has retained its value as an emotionally difficult piece of pop culture and it’s why the deeply-felt clip for “Good Night’s Sleep” is nearly impossible to watch without feeling emptied. After one viewing, it’s difficult to return to the video’s thesis shot: a vacant child’s swing, rocking gently in silence. It’s an arresting image that sets the tone for the ensuing emotional onslaught. Intertwining two visions (a la Derek Cianfrance’s masterpiece, Blue Valentine)- one decidedly more hopeful than the other- Bent Denim present a vision that cuts in a manner that’s brutally immediate.

Accentuating the video’s sense of pain and longing is the home video visual aesthetic, which suits the gentle tones of the song to a sublime perfection. All in all, “Good Night’s Sleep” is an intensely compassionate, moving portrait of both sides’ turmoil following what comes off as a difficult decision (one via audio and one through the clip, which features a gripping performance from its lead). In either case, the emotions are so palpable that the whole thing feels uncomfortably voyeuristic and intensely harrowing. It’s a situation that’s more familiar than most parties would let on but it’s rarely presented as delicately or as realistically as it is in “Good Night’s Sleep”. At the clip’s conclusion, to drive everything home in a way that’s definitively final, the viewer’s returned to the thesis image: a lone child’s swing, once projected to be full, once again swaying in silence.

Watch “Good Night’s Sleep” below and order Romances You from the band’s bandcamp.