Welcome back to The Last VJ, music fans. Some local love managed to make its way into the selection of most triumphant videos this week. Also, get ready for evil dancing, mad science, and heroin. You like heroin, right? No? Well, that's OK. Even without heroin it's a great round-up this week.
Vote at the end for your favorite.
Ethan Gold, "Royal Flush": Full marks to Ethan Gold, who took home the position of number one video in the voting last week in the second time in this column. Gold's music is powerful, dark, and dissonant, and his music video collaborations reflect that wonderfully so. "Royal Flush" offered a dream-like love ballade delivered in Gold's typically twisted manner, and director Rachel Samuels pulled of a creepy sideshow to accompany it. Congratulations.
Excerpt from "Widow" (video-performance) from Jil Guyon on Vimeo.
Jil Guyon, Chris Becker, & Spike the Percussionist, "Excerpt from 'Widow'": Strictly speaking, this isn't a music video, but I thought it was still wicked cool with contributions from two of my favorite local musicians. What you're watching is part of a video performance piece that is set to premier in New York very soon. All we get is a small piece of "Widow", but even that small snippet is haunting and wonderful.
Guyon, with glacial slowness, slowly pulls black cloth out of herself in a stark white hallway, and while that doesn't sound particularly moving or spectacular, the sheer emotion and blankness of her surroundings makes it akin to witnesses someone performing surgery on themselves. The score by Becker and Spike calls to mind the sense-shattering atmospheric work of Angelo Badalamenti. So much so that you feel like the sound is an invisible, malevolent character stalking Guyon. Here's hoping we get to see the full piece eventually.
See also: Last Week's Music Video Round-Up
Architecture in Helsinki, "Dream a Little Crazy": I'm hard on music videos that I don't feel have particularly compelling narratives, and even more so on ones that just throw a bunch of weird stuff together and hope it works out artistically in the end. That said, "Dream a Little Crazy" worms its way into your heart through its sheer insane mirth. I'm not sure how many people out there are still getting Jerry Lewis Nutty Professor gags, but if you're one of them this is a treat. Even aside from that is the Wonka-esque love of a colorful mess disguised as science in the name of whimsy. It's like a mini-sequel to the movie Toys, and that is the highest praise I have,
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