Music Monday

Music Monday – One Take Edition

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I am an absolute sucker for one-take media. Movies and music. I’m sure this won’t be the last time I do a series of one-take videos. I prefer it when the one-take is real, but sometimes well-hidden cuts are acceptable.

Dodie – Cool Girl

I just love this song and this video. I really enjoy this style of sort of, “raw dancing” where it’s a little messy and unstructured. I also like the sort of, symbolism of Dodie being slightly “off” from the other dancers, it fits with the themes of the lyrics and theme of the song. It seems intentional because she will be slightly off, then in perfect sync, then off again. Or maybe I’m reading too much into it. The song itself is really good as well. It starts out so light then the thumpy beat comes in and it builds up nicely from there.

Total side note, I am slightly enamored with the chest of drawers and nightstand in the opening bit. I have a collection of photos of furniture I have come across in this style because it seems weirdly prolific in the vintage furniture market for some reason.

Kiesza – Hideaway

I think this may be the first video I watched that turned me on to Kiesza’s music.

Something I find amusing about this whole video is that I am pretty sure that a lot fo the non-dancers, are just, people who were out and about. The dudes trying to go to their car. The person ho runs through he shot on the skateboard. One tell for this is how at the end, the Taxi almost gets caught in traffic and almost misses the cue. Also everyone seems to be having a good time, which I like.

OK Go – The One Moment

I could do an entire month’s worth of Music Monday posts on OK Go, instead, I’ll just sprinkle them in here and there. A lot of their videos are one-take videos or fake one-takes. This one is pretty amazing because it’s an extremely fast one take, that’s slowed down.

The behind-the-scenes for OK Go are almost always fascinating as well, or at least, the engineering part of my brain thinks they are. Like all the math that was needed to get the timing for this video down so it would work in the slowed-down version. I mean, I am sure there is some fudging going on, but it’s doing to be damn close.

Music Monday

Music Monday – Retro Edition

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Let’s roll things back this week for some “blast from the past” videos of yesteryear. Or more, yester-decade.

The Crystal Method – Born Too Slow

A song that I started listening to thanks to Need for Speed Underground, a racing game from EA. I liked that game a lot until I didn’t because it got super cheap on it’s AI at a certain point. At least I think it was NFW UG, i was also playing a lot of Midnight Club around that time, so they kind of blend together.

While the track itself, “Born to Slow” actually fits a racing game in name, it doesn’t really fit it in pacing. This really doesn’t feel like a very racing track. Kind of the opposite actually, The funky guitar sound almost feels just a little “too slow”, and kind of gives this slightly eerie feeling. Which does fit the video with it’s creepy glitchy gray man.

The Refreshments – Banditos

I remember seeing this video at like 2 AM on MTV in the 90s and loving that it referenced Captain Picard but I missed the credit tag. Like a year later I caught it again in the middle of the night and bought the CD like the very next day. Fun fact! The Refreshments did the theme song from King of the Hill, it’s called Yahoo and Triangles. Also this dude kind of looks like Joseph Gordon Levitt as a cowboy and i can’t not see it.

Flip – Possibilities (feat Elou Elan)

This video is weird, I have to say I have not watched it a lot. I used to really dig this track though. I am pretty sure it was on the Muzak system back when I worked at KB Toys, and it became ingrained into my brain after listening to it a thousand times. So maybe I don’t actually like it, I just have been tortured into thinking I like it.

Music Monday

Music Monday – Science-ish Edition

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Let’s see how long I can manage to keep up a vague theme for these posts. This week I wanted to throw out some videos with some fancy “science-y” themes. I use that in the vaguest since, because at least one is kind of a stretch but it’s certainly nice to look at.

Also, it’s a bit “Music Monday-ish” as well, since it’s Tuesday, because yesterday I posted about the Alanis Morrisette Concert. (Unless for some reason I didn’t go and forgot to remove that line, wait, now I need to remove this line if it does happen….)

Lusine – Just a Cloud (feat Vilja Larjosto)

I am completely fascinated by this video every time it comes up on y playlist. I really like the sort of layering of patterns that is present across the entire length of the track. It does a nice soft build as the song goes along. What I really like though in this video is the use of light.

I mentioned those patterns, and they essentially each also have their own light effect in the video. It’s about as close as you can get to “seeing music” without, I dunno, dropping acid or something, I’ve never tried that I can’t really say.

Wintergaten – Marble Machine

This guy has essentially made a career out of this crazy marble machine. He’s got a whole series of videos about the process he is doing to continually update and upgrade and basically build a more perfect device. I still really love this version though, with all the shaky jank going on. It’s a nice pleasant little song too.

The Engineer part of my brain loves all the technical planning and design that had to have gone into making this all work as well as it does, and the work being put in on the updated device.

Nigel Standford – Cymatics: Science vs Music

I mentioned about about being the “best way to see sound” and I guess I was wrong, because this video is the best way to see sound. Quite literally. Most of the experiments featured in this video are sound based experiments. The vibrations in the water pans, the way the water curls with the base, the funny patterns made by the graphite on the trays, the way the flames pop up and down in patterns. It’s all matter reacting to sound in a clean enough way that we can see it.

Sound travels in waves, most of these are just the sound waves visualized.

Except the Tesla coil at the end, that’s just, “cool science” that doesn’t really have much to do with sound.

Music Monday

Music Monday – Featuring Aurora Edition

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So I’ve been doing album write ups on Fridays, but sometimes I do still listen to singles and one offs and songs not on albums. So here’s a new series, starting here in Blaugust, where instead of doing albums, I just talk about videos and songs I enjoy. Also I’m calling it “Music Monday” because it’s not very original and I am a sucker for alliteration.

The Chemical Brothers – Eve of Destruction

Look at me, cheating already by just doing Aurora videos (well not all of them). I once made a comment on the Aurora Discord that my “favorite Aurora song isn’t even an Aurora song.” That’s not really true, though this track is pretty awesome. This is definitely my favorite Aurora video. It’s possibly my favorite video in general actually, there is just so much appealing here.

There’s Aurora, so that’s a bonus. But it also has this amazing cheesy Super Sentai thing going on. What is Sentai? Well it’s…. what’s in this video. It’s popular and originated in Japan. Thought the easiest example for most people is, Power Rangers, which is a remixed and American-ized version of the series Kyōryū Sentai Zyuranger.

The Chemical Brothers – Wide Open

This is such an interesting and fascinating video to watch, though I also do like the song. It’s very simple on the surface, a long shot of a young woman dancing around a room. But the effect of the vanishing body parts is really quite interesting and makes for a neat effect. The effect itself is actually pretty complex and the behind the scenes mentions they created special software to achieve it. Essentially they scanned her body to create a matching 3D model. Then she does the long take dance. The software extrapolates the entire scene out using LIDAR so they can sort of, recreate everything as a 3D model, which allows for the body replacement effect, that matches her movements.

It’s also kind of spooky when the video passes by the mirror and she’s watching herself, though I’m not real sure why.

Qing Feng Wu, AURORA – Storm (English Version)

I actually keep forgetting this collaboration exists, which is a shame because it’s really good. Qing Feng Wu fits well with Aurora too, better than the previous collab she did with Sub Urban. I have no idea if Qing Feng Wu’s music is normally this stylistic or not (a brief sampling suggests it is), but the ethereal nature of his voice and the natural themes and feel of the video are definitely right up there for Aurora.

There is also a version with some lyrics in Chinese.

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