Welcome to FACT’s weekly video round-up.
As we note at the end of every year, music videos have never been better. But too often, music videos — along with documentaries, live sets and interview clips — get lost in the shuffle of news and new music.
With that in mind, FACT is doing what it does for mixes, mixtapes, vinyl and more: rounding up the internet’s best videos on a weekly basis. And to remove our bias, we won’t be including our own content — you’ll have to stay tuned to FACT TV for all your Against The Clock, FACT Freestyles and Confessions needs.
Read more: The 20 best music videos of 2015
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El Guincho feat. La Mala Rodriquez
‘Comix’
Dir: CANADA
The artist and directing team behind one of the best videos ever reunites for ‘Comix’, their latest parade of strikingly surreal sequences: musical equipment moves on an invisible conveyor and a cloak turns into confetti before Guincho survives a dodgeball jump-in, does donuts in the dirt and hard-boils eggs while on acid. As always, CANADA delivers a video Michel Gondry would be proud of.
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Massive Attack, Tricky & 3D
‘Take It There’
Dir: Hiro Murai
Character actor nonpareil John Hawkes is a stumbling drunk haunted by four femme furies who turn his drunken mastery into choreography. The viewer feels equally wasted in a video reminiscent of the classic clip for ‘Rabbit in Your Headlights’.
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Flying Lotus
FUCKKKYOUUU
Dir: Eddie Alcazar
The short film you’ve all been waiting for: the Flying Lotus-scored FUCKKKYOUUU. FlyLo provides eery sound design for an even eerier visual that combines a grainy grindhouse monster movie, Under the Skin, Persona and Tanya Chalkin’s Kiss.
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Thug Entrancer
‘Ronin’
Dir: Milton Melvin Croissant III
A seizure-inducing mix of 2D and 3D animation, ‘Ronin’ brings German expressionism into a cyberpunk future where intergalactic travel and warehouse raves are all VR constructs.
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Vince Staples
‘Lift Me Up’
Dir: David Helman & Dustin Lane
Vince Staples raps this Summertime ’06 highlight while levitating near Long Beach, looking like someone halfway between exorcism and rapture; the uneasiness is only increased by the dizzying spin-cycle.
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New Order
‘Tutti Frutti’
Dir: Tom Haines
Italian actor Ricky Tognazzi plays an aging presenter grappling with his mortality. As he relives his greatest moments in his head, the next generation looks on in laughter as a lone dancer takes sympathy (or is she just another fantasy?).
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Awful Records
Sorry For the Mess
Dir: Alex Russell
Awful delivers their first short film, scored by KeithCharles Spacebar. Zack Fox aka Bootymath aka the Dead Man in the Chair cheerily kills himself, but not before leaving specific cleaning instructions for Archibald Slim, who’s mostly pissed off at the inconvenience.
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Tilla
‘Know Yourself’
Dir: Lewis James
We’ve seen plenty of these abstract, liquid metal conceptual pieces over the past few years, but ‘Know Yourself’ is particularly affective, as Tilla comes to life like a 3D-printed T2 over his woozy R&B soundtrack.
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The Chemical Brothers feat. Beck
‘Wide Open’
Dir: Dom & Nic
In one shot, a scantily-clad dancer does her routine in a warehouse, gradually revealing and coming to terms with an Ex Machina skeleton.
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Run The Jewels feat. Lil Bub, Maceo, Delonte
‘Meowpurrdy’
Dir: Cyriak
The video equivalent of “Yo dawg, I heard you like cat videos, so we put a cat video in your cat video…”
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Nire feat. Nani Castle & Nini Rey
‘Hopscotch’
Dir: Dominique Dawson
Nire follows up ‘Commie Mommie’ with ‘Hopscotch’, another feminist anthem with a visually arresting video. The producer and her collaborators wear PVC fetish gear and not much more, toying with orchids and colored powder as they threaten/promise to “hopscotch all over your face.”
