The latest video on our exchange program with Mick Cullen at Subterranean Radio brings us a Danish band called WhoMadeWho. Hopefully the picture up there has already eliminated any AC/DC reference points your brain might have been attempting, because WhoMadeWho is so far on the other side of the spectrum from the Thunder from Down Under that we're not even sure if it's still in the range of visible light.
Which is fine with us. We've gotten to the point where we only listen to "Highway to Hell" to reminisce about the ECW-era Dudley Boys, not for any endearing love for AC/DC. Hate to be a hipster douchebag about it, but WhoMadeWho is more the kind of thing we're looking for these days.
Almost danceable melancholy: That's the phrase we feel most comfortable using for labeling purposes. If the Bee Gees had been emotionally wired like This Mortal Coil, then they might have been something like WhoMadeWho.
"Every Minute Alone" comes off this year's Kompakt Records release Knee Deep. Watching it calls to mind the deeply existential plight of the first act of Fight Club, as Edward Norton breaks down from the pressure of being expected to matter in a world that seems to value only anonymous consumption.
However, "Every Minute Alone" can be better by a parable we read once. Watch it first.
Two donkeys are tied to a post. One's a town donkey wearing nothing but a saddle. The other is a prospector's donkey loaded down with camping equipment, pickaxes, guns, ammo, and a couple of 50-pound bags of ore. The town donkey looks at the mining donkey and says, "That's quite a load you have there." Then the prospector donkey asks, "What load?" and drops dead of a heart attack.
Jeppe Kjelldberg's voice and the song's haunting synth lines sum up the slow-motion breakdown of the fragile middle-class psyche. It comes to the point where being disconnected becomes such an open wound that even the slightest mishap rubs it back to bleeding. These are lyrics you hear in your head as you stare back at the bathroom mirror, wondering just how many iPhone apps it takes to replace human feeling.
You guys, not us. We skip through life like it was a field of poppies with a song in our hearts. That song was Jonathan Coulton's "Still Alive." Unfortunately, now it's "Every Minute Alone," and we don't so much skip as trudge grudgingly towards a fate tapping its watch and waiting to hand us paperwork.
Remember, friends and enemies. Good music is not happy music. By definition, it can't be, and so this we can honestly say that this is a very, very good video.
Rocks Off quizzed Kjelldberg about the music video. Go to Page 2 for his answers.
