No Weaknesses | Heartbreaking Bravery

April 6, 2016

Watch This: The Best of 2016’s First Quarter, Vol. III

[EDITOR’S NOTE: Each of the seven volumes that comprise this Watch This package contain 25 clips apiece. Due to the sheer volume of live videos that have come out during January, February, and March all of the packages will have the same introductory paragraph. Regular Watch This segments will resume on Sunday.]

It’s been a tremendous first quarter for live videos. While Watch This, Heartbreaking Bravery’s weekly series celebrating the very best of the live video format, hasn’t been in operation for roughly three full months, the information required to keep this thing humming (i.e., checking through hundreds of subscriptions and sources for outstanding new material) has been collected at regular intervals. If they were full sessions, single song performances, studio-shot, DIY captures, transcendent songs, or transcendent visual presentations, they were compiled into a massive list. 175 videos wound up making extraordinarily strong impressions, those videos will all be presented here, in the Watch This: The Best of 2016’s First Quarter extended package, one 25-clip presentation at a time.

Watch the third collection of those videos below.

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1. Thao & The Get Down Stay Down (KEXP)
2. Leapling – Alabaster Snow (VHS Sessions)
3. Ty Segall & The Muggers (KEXP)
4. Jawbreaker Reunion – Small Investments (This Has Got To Stop)
5. Julien Baker – Blacktop (BIRN)
6. Bantam Lyons – Away from the Bar (Faits Divers)
7. Furnsss – Effy (WHUS)
8. Michael Rault (Audiotree)
9. Ratboys – Light Pollution (DZ Records)
10. Savages – Evil (KCRW)
11. Stone Cold Fox – Contagion (Hooke)
12. Darlene Shrugg – First World Blues (Noisemakers)
13. Single Player – Silver Dollar (DZ Records)
14. Parquet Courts – Outside (WFUV)
15. The Dirty Nil – No Weaknesses (Little Elephant)
16. Palm – I Don’t Want to Know (VHS Sessions)
17. Sleater-Kinney – Price Tag (Austin City Limits)
18. Looming – Nailbiter (Trundle Sessions)
19. Courtney – Kids In Blushing Love (DZ Records)
20. EL VY (NPR)
21. Low – Try To Sleep (The Current)
22. Kishi Bashi – Manchester (NPR)
23. Run Forever – Big Vacation (Trundle Sessions)
24. J Fernandez – Read My Mind (Consequence of Sound)
25. Sharon Van Etten – Tarifa (NPR)

1 Comment

December 13, 2015

Dilly Dally – The Touch (Music Video)

Dilly Dally XXII

Continuing on with the onslaught of catch-up posts, we return once again to a fiery live-edit clip from one of Toronto’s fiercest live bands: Dilly Dally. An easy CMJ highlight, the band annihilated what seemed to be impossibly high expectations and delivered two of the best sets of the year. A site favorite since their first single, it’s been a joy to watch the band ride the crest of a surging wave of acclaim for Sore, one of 2015’s best records, and deliver at an extraordinarily high level on every platform they’re given. “The Touch” is just the latest in a string of triumphs and, despite Sore being their debut album, it already feels like a victory lap.

As atmospheric imagery is overlaid and intercut with performance footage, “The Touch” takes on the manic feel that partially defines the band’s aesthetic while also bring another important dimension into focus: the idea that there’s inherent beauty to be found in things that most would perceive as ugly or mundane. There’s always a certain emphasis on elegance at the surface of Dilly Dally’s work, whether it’s Sore‘s arresting album art or in their previous music videos, that comes laced with a confrontational moment; nothing’s ever truly at peace. “The Touch” reinforces that ideology with its vivid imagery, relentless energy, and bruising commitment, providing the band with a fitting final flourish to a year where they became one of music’s most distinctive new voices.

Watch “The Touch” below, pick up a copy of Sore here, and explore a list of some of the best music videos of the past few months underneath the embed.

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Post Life – Dissolve
Stove – Aged Hype
MMOTHS – Deu
Day Wave – Come Home Now
Tracy Bryant – Subterranean
Beautiful Breakdown – Transmission Party
Line & Circle – Like A Statue
Julia Holter – Silhouette
Lou Barlow – Nerve
The Dirty Nil – No Weaknesses
Yvette – Calm and Content
Adam Busch – Tiger
Menace Beach – Holidays are Heavy
The Lonely Wild – Snow
Beliefs – Leaper
Soupcans – Crimes 1
NRVS LVRS – 2 Young 2 Know
Beach Slang – Bad Art & Weird Ideas
Suede – Like Kids
Little Fevers – Bones
Unknown Mortal Orchestra – Necessary Evil
The fin. – Night Time
The Shrine – Coming Down Quick
Cave Curse – Stoned & Dethroned
EL VY – Silent Ivy Hotel
The Lonely Together – Congregation
Girls Named Benji – Murder Shoes
Vulva Culture (x4)
Yassou (x5)

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October 3, 2015

Bruising – Emo Friends (Stream)

Three weeks is a long time to go without covering a specific song in a feature section, something that inevitably means grappling with a whole lot of content. Occasionally, some of the heavier decision making is made easy through very particular releases. One such type of release occurs when a young band (especially one who’s already been featured on this site) brings new material into the world. After establishing some level of investment through coverage, it’s exciting to see those acts capitalizing on early momentum.

Bruising are one of those bands and “Emo Friends” is their latest musical adventure. The duo of Naomi Baguley and Ben Lewis continue to complement each other to some sort of perfection. The pull between their twee tendencies and something far more sinister continues to sustain their aesthetic and lend it a surprising amount of propulsive force. Effortlessly light melodies and razor-sharp guitar figures provide the song with a tattered cloth and give “Emo Friends” a palpable sense of place. As the distortion and cleanliness dip in and out, weaving an intricate pattern, the song as a whole barrels forward with little to no regard for easy expectations. It’s another thrilling moment from a band that’s continuing to build something worthy of greeting with genuine excitement.

Listen to “Emo Friends” below and pre-order the single from Beech Coma here. Underneath the embed, explored a handful of other great songs to find release over the past three weeks.