There are a lot of videos coming out of Austin these days, so we’ve decided to make life easier for you by compiling some of the most notable into a recurring feature called Out of Focus.
Teenage Cavegirl “No Good//So Bad”
As a director, Andy Ray Lemon’s aesthetic has long been in the vein of bootleg VHS tapes most of us associate with ’80s post-punk and ’90s alt-rock than the swamp boogie sounds his group Teenage Cavegirl thrives on. But the duo’s new single has a sound that matches the look of its video, with Lemon’s guitar sounding like it’d be right at home in a Joy Division jam session while LA’s drumming and vocals recall prime Babes in Toyland. Like the band’s set-up, the video is righteously simple, honing in on the band’s abundance of cool with no frills or fuss, just two sexy cool weirdos doing their thing.
Though their video catalog is still relatively small, Fort Never have displayed an exceptional knack for translating their hallucinogenic pop to celluloid. For their latest, director Travis Hoggard converts the nursery rhyme melody and tribal rhythms of “Fly High” into a simultaneously ecstatic and horrifying religious experience as Chantell Moody’s bandmates Deano Cote and Timmie Rook close in around her, clad in eerie white body paint that makes them look like extras from The Omega Man run amok. Hoggard makes the most of a minimal set-up, using the backdrop and Moody’s robes to project a strobe of images to heighten the hallucinatory effect of the visuals. The result is another visual triumph to match the band’s irresistible recordings.
Fort Never play the Pecan Street Festival on May 5th.
P2TheGoldMa$k & The Teeta- “24k”
Props to The Teeta for carving out a niche as Austin’s most loveable grinning street weirdo. Every video Teeta is in has him hanging off and around shit in the city or petting cats or mugging for the camera while his buddies lazily bike around him. He is a delight. Reel Bump’s video for Teeta and P2TheGoldMa$k’s new club ballad “24k” is no different, it’s just two buds, getting into harmless mischief in the city. One of them just happens to wear an admittedly creepy solid gold mask. The other is Teeta.
Kenny Gee “That Bag”
Way back when, Kenny Gee was a young rapper internally battling over whether he should pursue a more philosophical, lyrics-oriented sound or lean into a commercial approach. Over the past two years, the latter half of that has won out in a big way and Gee has embraced a super-agro trap style, sacrificing his enviable narrative skills in favor of endless shout outs and honking hooks. You can’t really fault Gee for going down this road, especially since he’s got videos pulling in hundreds of thousands of views now. “That Bag” isn’t quite up to that level of viewership but it seems like it’s only a matter of time, since it’s essentially a Migos clip but with lower production values and way more burners. That said, Christopher Locke does the best he can to differentiate the material, mostly through surreal micro details, like a shot of Gee stroking a puppy in a handbag after yelling “HOW MUCH YOU GOT IN THAT BAG, KID?!” and faces that suddenly disappear and turn into glitchy flashes of phrases. At first glance, the whole shoot looks like a party, but the more you look at it, the more it starts to look like a trip into some trap apocalypse.
Nick Hanover got his degree from Disneyland, but he’s the last of the secret agents and he’s your man. Which is to say you can find his particular style of espionage here at Ovrld as well as Loser City, where he mostly writes about comics. You can also flip through his archives at Comics Bulletin, which he is formerly the Co-Managing Editor of, and Spectrum Culture, where he contributed literally hundreds of pieces for a few years. Or if you feel particularly adventurous, you can always witness his odd .gif battles with his friends and enemies on twitter: @Nick_Hanover