#27: "elaborate coping mechanisms"
Welcome to issue #27 of THIS NEWSLETTER CANNOT SAVE YOU. Amidst the dreary backdrop of reality's insistent assertion of itself, producing this newsletter twice a month is a welcome respite, an organizing principle, and a justification for absurd behavior patterns. Oh sure, I can present a professional front when it's called for, but here in the warm confines of this newsletter, which is enjoyed or instantly deleted by an elite few, I can really share my deep insights about self and soul. I mean, I'm not going to. But I feel like I can. Or maybe I can't, like psychologically even. I don't know. Even if it turns out I can, I'm pretty sure I shouldn't at least. It might get fucking weird around here if I did that.
Highlights from Scottoworld
Scottovision
Behold! Literal minutes of entertainment await you:
"Night Creatures" (2022) - The third in a series of commercials masquerading as short films for fashion house Burberry, helmed by the four-person directing team known as Megaforce. Each film, starting with 2020's "Open Spaces" and 2021's "Singing In The Rain" homage "Festive," is a free-for-all of wild imagination coupled with elaborate choreography, and the new one adds science fiction to the palette. It's always weird to me that Burberry finances these films, given their relative lack of actual promotion of the brand, and maybe that's one of the reasons Burberry's creative director was recently replaced, who knows. But Megaforce are also top notch music video directors, clearly a fit for these creative briefs; they're making very interesting use of Burberry's advertising budget, to be sure. You can catch an interesting behind-the-scenes video via Hypebeast.
"Pursuit of Happiness (Megaforce version)" (2010) - My favorite music video from Megaforce, by the way, is for this track by Kid Cudi featuring MGMT and Ratatat. Two videos were actually produced for this song. The first version was creative and well-received, but this one came out months later with a decidedly more psychedelic bent, screwing around with in-camera perspective tricks and deploying an almost "Alice in Wonderland"-inspired production design. I have it stuck in my memory from reading it on some blog years ago that after this version was released, it was hurriedly taken down for undisclosed reasons, as though Cudi's team was somehow embarrassed; but fan outrage convinced them to restore it.
"Hand" (2021) - From the Pretty Eye Candy department: Animator / illustrator / director Tsz-wing Ho created a hand-drawn & rotoscoped 2D animated film in which floating disembodied hands form intricate mandalas, summoning psychedelic visuals to form their backdrops. The first half is a bit tranquil, and then the beat kicks in and we shift from black and white into a dazzling array of colors and shapes with the troupe of hands never far from the action.
"Hands: They're Here To Stay!" (2016) - I couldn't bear to include a film called "Hand" without also including this delightfully unnerving treatise on the subject of hands from Tyler Russo, who usually paints miniatures and makes Warhammer videos under the handle Billion Dollar Clown Farm (using the tagline "elaborate coping mechanisms"). This "documentary," however, is its own unique achievement, unafraid to ask such questions as "What are hands?" and "Do we need them?" Because, you see, what if hands are evil? I mean, they might not be. Still, can you trust them? In my elaborate filing system, this film lives in a directory simply called "classics."
"A Brief Disagreement" (2022) - Animator Steve Cutts describes his latest short film as "a visual journey into mankind's favourite pastime throughout the ages." I think of it as a literal depiction of the phrase "well that escalated quickly." You may have seen his work in a trio of excellent animated Moby videos, or in such iconic short films as "In The Fall" and "Any Time Is Ice Cream Time," and this film is a worthy (and violent) addition to that misanthropic repertoire.
"The Was" (2016) - To promote their second album, Wallflower, the sampledelic band The Avalanches collaborated with visual mash-up artists Soda_Jerk, providing the soundtrack to this "part experimental film, part music video and part concept album." It integrates samples from a dizzying array of films and TV shows to create a unique pseudo-narrative structure (giving a middle finger to the concept of copyright in the process), and you could easily get lost in the game of trying to count all the Easter eggs. The film was only temporarily available during the marketing campaign for the album, potentially because the content or style didn't mesh with the larger promotional push the band was doing with Apple Music. But a couple years later, it was posted again so that future generations in the distant year 2022 could eventually enjoy it.
"Another One's Hot In Here" (2018) - In a week that's seen the release of a long-lost Queen track featuring Freddie Mercury's vocals, let's celebrate the occasion with this sharp audiovisual mash-up by DJ Cummerbund of Queen's "Another One Bites The Dust" and Nelly's "Hot In Here." I believe this track qualifies as what the kids refer to as "a banger." (Via Sleepy.)
"Inner Space Artifacts" (2014) and "Time Trance" (2019) - Visionary artist Ben Ridgway is a prolific painter, sculptor and animator, whose work has inspired me for a long while. His paintings are like snapshots from an altogether alien umwelt, peering into distant corners of the metaphysical galaxy. Something about these two animations in particular seem to capture a sense of the whirling, churning visuals that many describe seeing behind their eyelids while exploring psychedelic headspaces.
"Blue Room (Top of the Pops performance)" (1992) - The only single from The Orb's second album U.F.Orb was the track "Blue Room," which clocked in at 39 minutes 57 seconds in length - three seconds short of the track duration limit on the UK singles chart at the time. (The album version is only 17 minutes long.) They did not perform the entire track when they appeared on "Top of the Pops" to promote the single - arguably they did not perform at all. Remarkably, U.F.Orb debuted at number one on the UK album chart, this cheeky TOPS appearance notwithstanding.
"Heaven" (2009) - Normally I don't really resonate with skateboarding videos. But this slow-motion promo clip from the Spike Jonze-directed skateboarding documentary Fully Flared is a gorgeous piece of steadily unfolding insanity captured on film, accompanied by a subdued but effective track by UNKLE. I've seen it several times recently, and I'm still entranced by it.
Exit Music
Sending you out this week with the recent nu-disco single by Swedish pop star Agnes, "Love And Appreciation," with its upbeat lyrics that would sound terribly woo in other contexts, but not with the "sweet love and good vibrations" of these beats behind them. I've been a fan of hers since I stumbled across her stylish video for "Fingers Crossed" with its The Holy Mountain inspired art direction, without realizing she was a proper pop star, and now I'm kinda hooked.
Here is the YouTube playlist featuring all but one of the recommendations from this issue. If you like this newsletter, please consider passing it along to a friend. If I get enough subscribers, I promise I will stop using this meme as my desktop background:
Until next time, I remain your friendly correspondent, thinking of you,
Scotto
Scotto Moore is the author of BATTLE OF THE LINGUIST MAGES and YOUR FAVORITE BAND CANNOT SAVE YOU.