Hold On | Heartbreaking Bravery

Watch This: Vol. 130

Adult Mom, Margaret Glaspy, Mise En Scene, Beach Slang (x2), Dr. Dog, Lee Fields, John Grant, Brass Bed, Sleepy Kitty, Quarrels, Adia Victoria, Floating Points, Dentist, Søren Juul, Hounds of the Wild Hunt, Therm, Pile (x2), Quilt, Charlie Parr, Wye Oak, Gabriella Cohen, JJ Grey and Mofro, Band of Horses, King Woman, Yoni & Geti, The Slow Show, Told Slant, So Pitted, Guided By Voices, Steve Gunn, Trombone Shorty, Rogue Wave, Mount Moriah (x2), Lily and Madeleine, Shearwater, and The Jayhawks all had incredibly strong performance videos surface over this past week, each of them deserving of multiple looks and listens. Taken collectively, their cumulative strength is overwhelming which, in turn, illustrates the incredible power of this week’s five featured clips and sessions. From what’s undoubtedly the most moving performance to ever run in this series to what may just be the outright best full sessions, there’s a lot here to appreciate. So, as always, sit up, adjust the volume, tinker with the settings, block out all excess activity, lean in, and Watch This.

1. PUP (Audiotree)

PUP have been getting coverage from this site for just about as long as its existed and they’ve recently gone into an even more intimidating overdrive. After absolutely decimating 7th St. Entry at the start of the month, the band’s been providing reasons to revisit their past. This past week Audiotree uploaded an old full session the band gave the series back at the start of 2015, flashing some increasingly sharp teeth in the process.

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2. Royal Headache – High (Pitchfork)

High, the most recent release from Royal Headache, had more than enough firepower to earn a spot as one of last year’s best albums. As strong as their recorded output is, Royal Headache’s real draw has always been their live show, which is captured here via Pitchfork. Vocalist and principal songwriter Shogun has always been a commanding presence and that trait’s on full display as the band tears through the exhilarating title track of their last record at this year’s Primavera.

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3. Bob Mould (Sound Opinions)

One of the most respected elder statesman of punk has found a way to revitalize his career over the past several years, hitting some extraordinary highs with recent efforts. It’s not that Bob Mould‘s career has ever been dull, it’s that something inside of him seems to have been pushed to full throttle. The trio of songs Mould careens through here for Sound Opinions serve as very strong evidence.

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4. Weaves (CBC Music)

No band has been showing up in coverage lately more than Weaves, who are trying to outrun a tidal wave of adrenaline after releasing what may wind up being the year’s most explosive record. The band’s been stringing together an insanely impressive series of the exact right moves at the exact right moment and this full session for CBC Music continues that trend. Masterfully shot inside of a greenhouse, it’s easily one of the strongest visual sessions to have ever run in this series and for just about anyone else, the cinematography here could threaten to diminish the performance. However, Weaves are a different kind of animal and they find a way to draw strength from the setting, allowing the visuals to ultimately enhance a ferocious set. Every aspect of performance videos is paid respect to with this session, which stands as an unforgettable masterclass of the form. File this one away for multiple trips back to enjoy or even to study; it’s that good.

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5. PWR BTTM – Somewhere Over the Rainbow (Emily Dubin)

There’s nothing I can say here that isn’t said better in or by this video, which is a very loving, sincere capture of PWR BTTM playing a deeply heartfelt show in Orlando. Just click play and appreciate the worthwhile things and people in you’re life while you still can and while they’re still here.

April 14, 2016

Mitski – Your Best American Girl (Music Video)

Mitski IV

Finally, after an onslaught of posts both large in scope and small in stature, this site has caught up to the current release cycle in all three main categories: streams, full stream, and music videos. It’s been a surprisingly overwhelming early run for great material in all three fields and Wednesday kept that pace humming along.

This post will cover music videos and full streams, while the ensuing post will circle back to individual songs. While Mitski‘s brilliant, confrontational “Your Best American Girl” finds the spotlight here, Bob Mould, Lewis Del Mar, The Pack a.d., and Neil Michael Hagerty & The Howling Hex also provided strong clips. Meanwhile, a formidable duo of records — Zen Mantra‘s self-titled and Guided By Voices‘ Please Be Honest — also found their way out into the world.

“Your Best American Girl” winds up with this post’s spotlight for a whole array of reasons. Everything from the directing, to the subtext, to the pointed commentary, to the visual presentation, to the editing, to the song itself ensured that “Your Best American Girl” would be held up an an example of not only the extraordinary but the deeply important. Ever since I first met Mitski, she’s been expounding on the virtues of self-worth and detailing the endless struggles that accompany the path to its attainment.

The Zia Anger-directed clip for “Your Best American Girl” is the most vivid hyper-realization of those defeats and triumphs to date.

After cracking this site’s 50 Best Songs of 2016‘s First Quarter list, “Your Best American Girl” has been on near-constant repeat and that level of investment’s been rewarded tenfold. The anticipation for Mitski’s upcoming Puberty 2 has been growing since the release of Bury Me At Makeout Creek (one of this site’s picks for the Best Albums of 2014) and the arc of “Your Best American Girl” has elevated that anticipation to stratospheric levels. Now, that song’s got an unforgettable video and Puberty 2 seems poised to be another instant classic.

Opening on a shot of Mitski being sprayed, touched up, and transformed into a perfectly made up creature. During this process, she looks overwhelmingly disinterested until the clip cuts to a one shot of a young, conventionally attractive male across the room. Both of them are seated on stools and, eventually, they start exchanging body language, cultivating some palpable sexual tension in the process. While this is a sequence that takes less than forty seconds, it proves to be masterful in its execution, taking great care to both distance the male figure and pull Mitski out of the shadows through clever lighting design and photography direction.

Meticulous details like those inform the rest of “Your Best American Girl” while the central action occurs; an attractive white woman joins the male figure and the pair quickly become physically affectionate as Mitski looks on, confused, distraught, despondent, and displaced. Those looks that occur on the artists end feel painfully honest due to the onslaught of cruel injustices that she’s had to face throughout her life. For a moment, “Your Best American Girl” abandons any semblance of hope and becomes a devastating statement of isolation.

Before long, the video inverts is course and Mitski pulls up her hand and mimics the discomforting display of affection happening across the room. At first, those moments where Mitski becomes amorous with herself feel like they’re drawn from a learned place of loneliness, despair, and the kind of personal anguish that can be derived from having a crushingly low sense of self-worth.

Just a few seconds after the sequence becomes extremely uncomfortable in both its confrontational presentation and its unflinching subtext, something beautiful happens: Mitski reclaims her own agency and fully commits to herself. In just a few frames, “Your Best American Girl” transforms itself from a public display of extreme self-deprecation to a bold, empowering statement that drastically reduces the need for the approval of others.

By the video’s end, Mitski’s shed her carefully-selected ensemble (a red pantsuit that exposes her own vulnerability) and been reborn in a dress, guitar in hand. While there’s still a desire for intimacy, understanding, and acceptance that lingers throughout the closing moments of “Your Best American Girl”, the need’s been lessened by the realization that we’re worth more than our disappointments. It’s a crucial, realistic distinction and it pushes “Your Best American Girl” from being great to being legitimately important.

“Your Best American Girl” is an astonishingly powerful video that perfectly presents the values that drive the majority of Mitski’s work. It’s a daring clip, whose risks are rewarded with the songwriter’s most definitive entry in an already impressive career. If the rest of Puberty 2 lives up to the standard this has set, it’ll be a record that’ll be admired (and played) for decades. Don’t make the mistake of letting this pass without celebration and remember that we all have inherent worth, even during the stretches — especially during the stretches — when that seems impossible.

Watch “Your Best American Girl” below and pre-order Puberty 2 ahead of its release here.

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December 23, 2015

Bruising – Honey (Stream)

[EDITOR’S NOTE: With the site now entering emergency year-end catch-up mode thanks to the cruel, mocking nature of time, tonight’s trio of posts will simply be short reviews of the song(s) in the headline(s) and an accompanying list of tracks that deserve to be heard.]

One of the finest emerging bands of 2015 has been Bruising, an act whose origins can be traced back to a Perfect Pussy shirt. While they’re steadily building momentum to what promises to be one of the more anticipated debut full-length efforts in recent memory, the slow stream of songs they’ve been releasing have merited a great deal of excitement on their own. Earlier this year, the act unveiled “Emo Friends” the A-side of their latest single, which saw them refining the things that helped them stand out. In the time elapsed since this site last covered single streams, the band released the b-side to that single, the propulsive “Honey”.

Built around incendiary guitar work and another compelling vocal performance from Naomi Baguley, the song exemplifies the band’s impossibly charming aesthetic. There’s some menace buried in a shoegaze-informed basement pop track that feels improbably light. Nearly paradoxically, there’s also some real weight to be found in “Honey”, thanks to the scathing lyrical kiss-offs and the hard-charging instrumental section. In all, it’s another triumphant effort from a band that’s already established themselves as a site favorite only a few songs into their career.

Listen to “Honey” below and pick up “Emo Friends b/w Honey” here. Underneath the embed, explore a list of great songs to have appeared over the course of the last several months.

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Luxury Gbg – Strand
Bilge Rat – Jon Puked Last Night
Halfsour – Porch Sittin
Little Star – For Goth Easter
Living Hour – Seagull
Washer – Pet Rock vs. Healing Crystal
Soft Fangs – The Air
Thao & The Get Down Stay Down – Nobody Dies
La Sera – High Notes
The Dirty Nil – Zombie Eyed
Telepathic – Suit to Fit
Kal Marks – Dorothy
Pinkshinyultrablast – The Cherry Pit
Half Japanese – Hold On
The Foetals – The World Isn’t That Big
Way Out – Arrival
Acid Fast – Just Grin
Thom Fekete – Treason
The Castillians – Piggy in the Middle
Casket Girls – Western World
Massenger – Cristal Animal

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April 4, 2015

Sheer Mag – Button Up (Stream)

Continuing on in the quest to get the site caught up on all the things that caught my attention in 2015 affords some unique opportunities. One of them is the chance to celebrate a few of the truly great items that surfaced over the course of this year’s first three months. By the end of tonight, all of those will be featured in some form- be it a list inclusion, a mix, or some words. In this post, there won’t be a lot of material from the past two weeks (with the notable exception of a jaunty tune from The Splits and an absolute stunner of a track from one-time site contributor Johanna Warren) but it should still serve as a healthy reminder of 2015’s formidable early strengths. One of those songs, Sheer Mag’s “Button Up” will be receiving the greatest amount of focus. Below that, as has been custom, are 75 outstanding songs from this year’s first quarter. Now, back to this post’s main draw.

Sheer Mag have been picking up a great amount of notoriety in important circles since the release of their 7″ from last year, which was strong enough to land on the site’s Best 7″ Records of 2014 list. “Button Up”, the band’s first new material since that EP, is a refinement of everything that’s made Sheer Mag so exciting from the beginning. “Button Up” retains the band’s appealing lo-fi punch but their pop sensibilities are sharper than ever, rendering “Button Up” an unlikely heavyweight. Impossibly crunchy guitars, powerful vocals, and a sense of joy permeate throughout this track and provide Sheer Mag with a valid claim as one of the most exciting upcoming bands on the market. If the rest of their upcoming 7″ can hit similar peaks, it’s not unlikely that they’ll be appearing on quite a few December lists (ours included).

Listen to “Button Up” below and keep an eye on this site for more coverage surrounding the band’s upcoming release. Beneath the embed are 75 outstanding songs from 2015’s opening stretch.