saturday night video

Glazyhaze released Sonic in March of this year. The sophomore album from the band has received a lot of positive press for its refined take on shoegaze, with physical copies selling out very quickly and having to be restocked hastily.

With shoegaze being such a global phenomenon at this point, you wouldn’t necessarily pick up on Glazhaze’s Venetian origins. Still, singer Irene Moretuzzo’s aquiline nose and Italian beauty, and the gratuitous smoking in the video for “Nirvana” are some clues. The band cites DIIV as a major influence, and it comes across in their music, which is full of glide guitar and ethereal textures.

Glazyhaze – Nirvana (YouTube)

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If you enjoy this track, check out “Forward” by Distant Correspondent.

Years ago, a friend a colleague mentioned to me how she gets choked up at daddy/daughter songs. I thought to myself that I couldn’t even name a single song that would fit into that description. It’s interesting how our interest in different musical genres put us in touch with varied subject matters. With Scout Gillett’s “Enough,” I can finally say I have at least some idea of what my colleague was talking about.

Gillett’s last album, No Roof, No Floor, brought her Midwest rural sounds to the city, reflecting the urban environment of Brooklyn where she had relocated. The videos that accompanied those songs made a subject out of life in New York. Gillett’s new singles, created after her move to Los Angeles, bring to the foreground some of the earthiness that always bubbled a bit beneath the surface of her songs. The sunny California setting works alongside her new sun kissed look.

Scout Gillett – Enough (YouTube)

Chris Stewart from Black Marble sets his Joy Division-like post punk to footage from a rodeo, what appears to be a county fair and a horse race. He plays his icy synth on the outskirts of a concert crowd watching a band that seems a much more likely rural attraction. Stewart doesn’t stray far from the sounds of his Brooklyn origins, despite the subject matter of the video. It’s a strange juxtaposition, but it works in a slice-of-life kind of way.

Black Marble – Private Show (YouTube)

Brothers Evan and Quinn Seurkamp, who primarily make up the Ohio band The Laughing Chimes, call upon the hauntings of the Appalachian foothills of their native state as inspiration for their gothic jangly post-punk. There is a wistfulness appropriate to the rust belt and its faded glory that pervades their album Whispers in the Speech Machine.

“High Beams” is one of the catchier, more upbeat tracks on the album. The vocals call to mind Peter Murphy and the keyboards add some sparkle. One can imagine this is what Bauhaus might have sounded like after indulging in some Special-K.

The Laughing Chimes – High Beams (YouTube)

Featuring a heavy dose of Nippon by way of Berlin, Germany, Mitsune brings their blend of traditional folk sounds with a proggy psychedelic flair to KEXP. The songs center around the shamisen playing of Shiomi Kawaguchi and Youka Snell but have the rhythm backing of bass and drums. Colorful traditional costumes enhance the power of the music in what is almost as much of a visual as audio delight.

I’ve been coming back to this video quite a bit. I’m not sure anything could be farther from the Byzantine chants that will accompany the Pascha celebration at my Orthodox Church tonight, but I’m enjoying the thought of the contrast.

Mitsune – Live on KEXP (YouTube)

For this Friday Night Video, we’re going back a way, to the mid-nineties. Smashing Pumpkins had released Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness a fittingly grandiose title for an ambitious and widely varied double-album. At the time, I heard the first single, the “rat in cage” song, and I thought this latest effort wasn’t for me. I actually went out and sold my Smashing Pumpkins CDs, which I had been collecting since shortly after the release of their debut, Gish.

It wasn’t until later that I found out there were some strong tracks on the third official record from the band. “1979” is a well-loved classic. Even Pavement covered the song, and they had their own song with the lyrics, “I don’t understand what they mean, and I could really give a f**k,” in reference to SP.

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