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Welcome to VISUAL STIMULI, a critical perspective on the eyeball-friendly side of music: the humble and oft-overlooked Music Video with MICHAEL PINCOTT. Now showing on your favoured televisual device or YouTube platform…
 THE BOAT PEOPLE – Awkward Orchid Orchard
Director: Paul Underwoord
The song: The very catchy lead single from the band's second full-length, Chandeliers. Bright and breezy indie pop is the order of the day for this highly hummable track.
The video: The essence of the video is the moving cardboard cut-out theme, which admittedly has been done before. The twist on this particular iteration is that 52 band names are hinted at throughout the video with simple visual clues. Oh, and the obligatory cardboard version of the band play too but this seems secondary to the clues. Whip out that pen and paper!
Stimulatory value: In a clever marketing twist The Boat People have actually been running a contest for people to name all 52 bands alluded to in the video, a feat which I strived to accomplish but ultimately failed – some of them are tricky, okay? The album's artwork of primary colours and branches features heavily as a theme here and while the band names concept is rather detached from the song, the body of the video is cohesive enough to pull it all together quite nicely.
*** ½
Check out The Boat People's Awkward Orchid Orchard music video
 RADIOHEAD – House Of Cards
Director: James Frost
The song: A dreamy, laid back song, where Yorke's voice conveys floaty surrealism instead of its usual emotional intensity. It stands out against the flow of In Rainbows and yet feels like a critical part of it. The relaxed guitar strumming gives this a strange tropical island feel.
The video: Seems basic in theory. Some landscape shots and some head shots of Thom Yorke singing. So what's noteworthy about such a plain concept? It was made without cameras. Radiohead being Radiohead, cameras just weren't good enough and so instead the video was digitally created using lasers. Don't quiz me on the technical aspects but it's essentially a visual sonar where the image is mapped by calculating the distance between points. The effect is quite stunning especially considering that there was absolutely no filming involved.
Stimulatory value: It's not really surprising to hear about Radiohead being at the forefront of something new and I guess we'll see if this style of video takes off. Yorke commented that the interesting aspect of the video was how emotional it felt despite the fact it was entirely detached from actual visual contact. It's certainly an engaging video and Yorke reassuringly looks just as strange depicted by lasers as he does with regular old cameras.
****
Check out Radiohead's House Of Cards music video
 FLEET FOXES – White Winter Hymnal
Director: Sean Pecknold
The song: Ghostly, reverb-drenched folk. It's only a brief track but it leaves an impression.
The video: Ahh, claymation. Commonly seen but difficult to do well. Some old men (old because they have long beards) stand around, one of them turns a magical wheel of time that makes them young again. Once he lets go of the handle it spins all the way back and then they're old once more. They don't look happy about it.
Stimulatory value: The interesting thing about this video is what it accomplishes within a short time. It's unusual for a song that doesn't even crack two and a half minutes to be selected for a video, given that it places a big restriction on what the video can do in order to flesh out a story or concept. There's a few nice effects on display, the snow melting into the ground with flowers springing up, and the spinning of the sky as the magical wheel is rotated is good too. It's difficult to convey a concept like this in two and a half minutes but Pecknold does a good job in making it all click.
*** ½
Check out Fleet Foxes' White Winter Hymnal music video
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