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27.6.12
Our Top Three Videos Of The Week #9




















Hey Everybody!

This week there's a lot of feelings going on in our selection, we're diving deep into melancholy, a touch of sadness, misunderstanding, hope; all these mixed together, creating a top 3! Let's go!



3) Varúð - Sigur Rós (Dir. Inga Birgisdóttir)

First, a question! Have you listened Sigur Rós' new album "Valatri"? If not, wait a second, go to their website and do yourself a favor, buy this AMAZING double vinyl immediately and your life is going to change! Yes it's that good! This vinyl is such a masterpiece that Jónsi himself said that this is the only album from Sigur Rós he listens to at home, and I must say, this is an album to listen to everywhere, anytime!

So, I already spoke about Sigur Rós for blog post #6 and I was thinking if I should write again about them even though there are so many amazing bands to discover all over the world. The answer is YES. I can write twice about the most exciting band from Iceland as I never know what to expect when they release new material but I'm always freaking impressed! So on top of all their beautiful "merchandise" projects from the art print of the vinyl cover, a shirt with organic cotton and 300 editions of 100% icelandic wool blankets, now they have a new film project going on! This project consists of having a dozen filmmakers with the same budget creating what comes into their mind whilst listening to the new album. The reason they're doing this project is to allow filmmakers to have a creative freedom, expressing an emotional response that comes directly from the music whatever way you feel. Oh Sigur Rós, you're great! I love bands that are more than drums, guitars, pianos etc, bands that actually like to show what they think about everything. That's Sigur Ros! The second music video (watch the first one here which to be honest I don't really think is the right video for Sigur Rós, but whatever, artists, artists… they have their reasons!) is made by Jónsi's sister and she's very talented! The video really gets all the feelings from the music and the greatness of the power coming from the growing of the music, transcending, surpassing, going beyond! The video is actually quite simple but well articulated, with such a great idea/story-line and full of beauty, such beauty!

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2) Sea Above, Sky Below (Live in a hotel room @ Kutsher's Country Club, New York City) - Dirty Three feat. Nick Cave

My good friend André Ramiro (who actually has an amazing experimental post-rock band in Brazil called Ruído/mm, check them out here, you can even download their free CD's legally. Horay!) So where was I? Right, so my friend André told me to go and see this band called Dirty Three who were playing in London on the 7th of June at Cargo (it was absolutely incredible with so much energy on stage giving me chills all the time, oh man!) and they're also playing in November at The Shepherd's Bush Empire, so don't miss them! Well by the time my friend told me about Dirty Three, I did my research and I just fell in love with this incredible band and great songs. This music video shows very much what you should expect from their gigs, all the intensity coming from their music going from here to there, up and down... - the only thing it doesn't show is how crazy Warren Ellis gets during the gig and the articulation between his body and the music, and of course all the stories he likes to tell people of what the next song is all about.

Dirty Three are a three-piece-man-band composed of Warren Ellis (violin), Mick Turner (guitar) and Jim White (drums) from Australia with sad and beautiful instrumental songs with some sort of shout/barks in between notes. They've been kicking arses since 1992 beside the amazing side projects the crazy man Ellis has been involved with Mr. Nick Cave being a member of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds since 1995, also Grinderman since 2006 - besides that both of them did many collaborations for films as the award-winning composition for the films "The Proposition" and "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford". But it's not only Warren who likes to do amazing collaborations, Jim White has worked with Bill Callahan, Cat Power and PJ Harvey, whilst Mick Turner paints, holds exhibitions and records music for film and TV. Their sound can be described as a mixture of alternative post-rock with jazz, blues, celtic, folk and classical, but I prefer to keep my own description of melancholic-noisy-music, my favorite kind of music ever!

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1) Postcard From 1952 - Explosions in The Sky (Dir. Peter Simonite)

Argh Explosions in The Sky, the band I truly love and never got a chance to see live, I've always been away when they come to the UK... Typical! And even worse as they're known for their intense live performances, damn! But they're playing Latitude Festival this year, so make sure you don't miss that because I'm not missing it at all! (Besides the great set list with Bon Iver, Elbow, Laura Marling, Wild Beasts, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, M83, The Antlers, Alabama Shakes, Daugher, Josh T Pearson, First Aid Kid, Francois & The Atlas Mountain, St Vincent, Sharon Van Etten, Battles, Zola Jesus, Esperanza Spalding, Amadou & Mariam, Buena Vista Social Club aaaah damn, do you see how amazing this festival is? Let's go! So back to Explosions in The Sky! Coming from Texas with their experimental, instrumental, post-rock ambient music, they're active since 1999 and have released six amazing albums!

This music video matches perfectly with all the moods of Explosions in the Sky, quite spacious, slow, melancholic and full of feelings. It's so important when the director captures the whole feeling of the music and creates something that flows and is unique. I guess that's what impresses me and makes very happy when watching a music video. For this one especially, to film in slow motion was the greatest move from the director. It's so impressive because until 01'21'' minute of music/film nothing really happens but still it's so well done with such amazing shots of a bubble that it completely catches the attention of the viewer. The various stories of the family, the lady, the kids with different experiences, feelings and peculiarities.. memories! That's what this music video is all about and they did a great job passing the feeling of the music through stories. Well done! If you want to check a bit of the creative process, inspirations for the stories and shots, watch the making of here.

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Let us know what you think and send us some music videos you find amazing too! Love, Lara.

If you'd like to see a bit more of Lara's work for Day Job Records, click here and for her other projects click here