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.
Lou Rebecca- “If You Can”
Parisian transplant Lou Rebeccahas been building up a following with her leisurely electro-pop and for good reason– it’s playful and stylish and a damn good time. Her new video “If You Can” initially comes across as a curious choice for expressing those qualities, beginning with an unwrapping of gold foil that gives way to Lou Rebecca, herself wrapped in gold, shimmying in front of a black curtain. But when the gold recedes we’re treated to nature imagery and then a less fancy Rebecca, now frolicking through fields and putting on a solo New Wave performance, like Anna Karina fronting Depeche Mode. Considering the song is about prey convincing a hunter to love instead of kill, the juxtaposition of nightclub and nature imagery makes sense, and it’s hard to see how anyone could resist Lou Rebecca’s charms after such a performance.
Bayonne- “Appeals”
Back when he was still operating under his legal name, Bayonneplastered the city with stickers that said “Roger Sellers is Not a DJ,” a calculated attempt to move people away from the assumption that anyone utilizing an MPC instead of live instruments shouldn’t be considered a musician. But I think Bayonne’s new collaboration with the No Funvideo team for his track “Appeals” get this point across even more efficiently, showcasing Bayonne’s balletic approach to electronic music as well as his impressive eye for visual details in live performances. So while it is sort of a live video, it’s a live video in the same way that Stop Making Sense is, expressing the joy of performance and the intellectual approach Bayonne takes to his craft and like that seminal Talking Heads work, it also gets a lot of its potency from the way live instruments are eventually introduced. It shouldn’t be too hard to remember Roger Sellers isn’t a DJ after this.
Purple- “Pretty Mouth”
Purple are singlehandedly responsible for like half of the music video output in Austin right now, but what’s more remarkable than that is their batting average with those videos. Their latest clip is for “Pretty Mouth,” a light, Police-esque song about dumb dudes belittling and undermining much smarter women. The video takes a less diplomatic but undoubtedly cathartic approach to resolving general dude dickishness, with Hanna Brewer murdering her bandmates after they critique her cooking. David Morrison utilizes a cut-up approach with the narrative, showing us glimpses of the gruesome act and what provoked it, but it mostly focuses on the clean-up Brewer has to do afterwards. Nothing’s ever easy, and that’s as true of slaughtering misogynist assholes as it is of making a good meal.
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
