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
Mitski
‘Your Best American Girl’
Dir: Zia Anger
In the fourth wall-breaking ‘Your Best American Girl’, Mitski watches a “bro” and a “babe” hook up on an American flag, and – true to her Puberty 2 album title – makes out with her self and wails on guitar in white space.
Prince Rama
‘Now Is The Time Of Emotion’
Dir: Matt Hoffman and Taraka Larson
80s-referencing “now age” duo Prince Rama update the Beasties’ ‘Fight For Your Right’ video, turning a stodgy art gallery into a punk show as their fans break through walls, kickflip off sculptures and wreck Kruger and Koons mock-ups.
DTCV
‘Histoire seule’
Dir: Steven Soderbergh
The busiest retiree in Hollywood “presents a slyly subversive but more iconographic and idiosyncratic take on history’s flux,” using a split screen to compare and contrast modern footage with an old film about Abraham Lincoln. Oh, and since bandleader Lola G.’s lyrics are about “how women tend to get erased from history,” please don’t refer to DTCV as “Jim Greer’s band.”
iLoveMakonnen
‘Solo’
Dir: Max
Makonnen shows off his new physique, riding horses with some cowgirls in this letterboxed clip that brings Western tropes to the rap video.
Kanye West
‘Famous’
Dir: Aziz Ansari and Eric Wareheim
Longtime Kanye devotee Aziz Ansari and his Master of None co-star Eric Wareheim filmed their own video for ‘Famous’, a couple of comedians living large in Rome. It’s cute but it has nothing on Zach Galifianakis’ tractor-riding take on ‘Can’t Tell Me Nothing’.
Elliphant
‘Spoon Me’
Dir: Aisha Linnea and Shahbaz Shigri
For her anthem about spooning, Elliphant heads to Islamabad, riding motorcycles and elephants and partaking in a fire-breathing ritual that sees her create her own Pieta.
Ohal
‘All Mine’
Dir: Ohal
“The video for ‘All Mine’ represents a sudden glance into the cross-section of time where past, present and future amalgamate and become a single mass, an object, no longer constricted to a linear axis,” writes Ohal about this self-directed video, which layers footage into a spark-filled haze.
Palmistry
‘Club Aso’
Dir: Benjy Keating & Tom Walker
Palmistry (aka Benjy Keating) teamed with Tom Walker on the ‘Club Aso’ video, turning his image into a water-logged reflection: a mellow treatment for an equally chilled out bit of dancehall.
Troller
‘Storm Maker’
Dir: Sean Miller
Director Sean Miller uses Max/MSP Jitter to “create shifting abstract landscapes that suggest depth, but are also flattened to create subtle tension,” creating five virtual spaces to match the “nostalgia and longing” of the song.
Matthias Zimmermann
‘ANDEO’
Dir: E. Shahidi
On ‘ANDEO’, Matthias Zimmermann opts for a “non-video,” questioning the utility of a video for an instrumental dance track meant to be heard in the club at 3am. To each his own.
