MV Monday: SPICE, Underhand Noise, Conrank, Xiao Ou

Sick as a goose, BEME fucked me all which ways this weekend – and cant’ wait for my next date. But before that ever happens, let’s dip into some music videos – the best batch we’ve gotten in some time, including news MVs from Hangzhou-based psych electro rockers SPICE, Norwegian-born Chinese rapper Xiao Ou, the international team up of DJ Conrank and DJ Shadow, and finally, the wizard tag team Underhand Noise and their take on a My Bloody Valentine classic.

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The tag team of Noise Arcade and Guiguisuisui bought a lot to the table – Moby Dick ranting, Hobbit ranting, and the unexpected (and surprisingly successful) merger of two of Beijing’s most interesting, and might I add, hard to swallow acts. Now they can add this gem to the Underhand Noise cannon – a beautifully shot and rendered music video for the duo’s take on the My Bloody Valentine single ‘When You Sleep’ – it was put together by visual artist (and fellow LBM collaborator) Jeff Yiu and I gonna have to bear hug him next time I see him cause this a beautiful piece of work which I have so many questions about. Mainly, how did the hell did you do this? So many visual tricks, cinematic nods, and just plain artistry that commands my attention.

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Though Xiao Ou left Beijing late this spring, it time’s for the Norwegian born, Chinese spitting rapper to finally say his farewell to our diverse (and hopefully as bright and vibrant as what’s depicted here) city in his latest MV ‘Beijing Gushi – which is a nice introduction that names drops, pokes fun at, but at the end of the day paints a rather flattening picture of the city we’ve all come to love. And unlike the long list of other Beijing rap videos which dropped like hot potatoes in the past year, Xiao Ou feels the most authentic, both in its technical attributes as well as content-wise. Basically, man knows how to represent. Props.

Remember my ranting and raving last week about Hangzhou-based post psychedelic electro (that’s enough genres squeezed in there) rock trio SPICE – well, looks like I’m not the only who sees something. Xiami is getting into the MV business and this epic video for their new song ‘Moth Version lll’ is pretty much a crash course in masterclass filmmaking – and if you don’t think so just check out the extensive credit/behind the scenes sequence at the end – a really cool inclusion for anyone curious at how ridiculous these shoots can get. Just slick film work – not sure how I feel about ‘wacky waving inflatable arm flailing tubeman’ – dude creeps me out.

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Continuing with music videos that have caused my envy meter to go bat shit crazy, the latest MV from Shanghai-based, one man production machine LiveCircus is a friggin hoot. It’s for electronic artist Conrank, one of Shanghai’s international loved DJs whose list of collborations is quite vast. His latest is perhaps his best, the legendary DJ Shadow, and the accompanying video for the title track of said collaboration ‘Exhale Therapy’ is even better. A warped trip to yesteryear that turns into a Disney-enhanced nightmare. Just watch  already – talk about complimenting the material. Bravo, Alessio Avezzano, bravo.