#58: "because you know what, it feels good"
Welcome to issue #58 of THIS NEWSLETTER CANNOT SAVE YOU. If there has been a mixup and you were expecting a different, better newsletter, then boy do I have some bad news for you. Everyone else, meanwhile, I’m back with another blast of interesting stuff you could look at. As the popular saying goes, if you’re into this kind of thing, then this is definitely the kind of thing you’ll be into. And not like the other popular saying that goes, “Wait I thought this was a different, better newsletter, what in Hades, how do I etc.”
Scottovision
“I Want You” (2024) - Jon Benjamin aka Jazz Daredevil (aka the voice of Sterling Archer among others) is about to release his third album, called The Original Motion Picture Soundtrack of The (Unproduced) Film, The Jazz Daredevil Movie, and the leadoff single is a masterclass in committing to the bit; I won’t spoil the actual bit, of course. If you’re unfamiliar with the Jazz Daredevil persona, start your journey with a short promotional clip for his first album, Well I Should Have… Learned How to Play Piano. Then proceed to a similar clip promoting his second album, The Soundtrack Collection, which Sub Pop helpfully describes as “arguably the first truly great collection of movie theme songs performed poorly with a Moog synthesizer and expertly by an orchestra at the same time.” This is some expertly crafted shtick with, like, layers and stuff.
“Infinity, Singularity and The Rapture” (2023) & “Existence no longer exists” (2024) - The narrative conceit with these short blasts of cosmic horror is that an expedition was sent to investigate an improbable or impossible region of spacetime, prompting something to come out of that very region to investigate us. Not something like a physical monster with tentacles, mind you; a dizzying amount of math is deployed to describe what lurks out there where nothing should exist in the first place. Indeed, at one point, someone seems to be shooting missiles at math, a futile but fully relatable gesture. From the mysterious Unorthodox Kitten, who some suspect is running an ARG with this stuff; that means if you like it, there’s more to chew on.
“Wake Up, Pass Out” (2024) - Okay but speaking of physical monsters with tentacles, let’s have a look at the new music video from Sad Night Dynamite, which takes you on a wild night out with your chums who have unexpectedly fused into a mutant aberration and are looking to incorporate or ingest you, it’s not exactly clear which. Directed by Balázs Simon, who also directed one of my favorite animated music videos, “Re” by Nils Frahm.
“Au cœur du son” (2024) - This animated music video depicts a surreal journey “at the heart of sound” for a pair of students on the aural equivalent of a vision quest. Imagine synaesthesia as a place you could go, or a dream state you could access while wide awake, and these two find just the right frequency to slip inside. The style is conceptual rather than flashy, appropriate to the mysteries in question, but it’s psychedelic all the same. Written and directed by Marie Larrivé & Lucas Malbrun, music by Rémi Fox.
“New Lands” (2012) - But now, let’s take a detour into the distant past for this epic retro-futuristic music video from Justice. Two teams go head to head in the sporting event of the century. What’s the game? It’s a full throttle combination of football, baseball, roller derby, lacrosse, hockey, and motocross, of course. There’s a great behind the scenes clip that showcases the work of directing team/production house CANADA, who have landed a disproportionately high number of memorable music videos in the canon. It’s a treat to see them operating at such an ambitious (and ridiculous) scale and pulling it off.
“Recovery” (2023) - Director Nick Lane delivers a dingy, duct-taped vision of the metaverse in this VR-style animated misadventure. Our POV character, User, needs to reset their account in the world sim in order to, like, be a person or whatever; sadly their tech support for today will be an unruly AI. The scenario’s gritty and deliberately unpolished (like the world it purports to simulate), and the rough edges make for clever slapstick comedy.
“Unknown Quantum Objects” (2024) - This wild animated short film assumes that there are 64 hypothesized dimensions beyond the baseline three dimensions of spacetime, then presents a series of vignettes depicting what the human experience would be like if we found ourselves living (not for long, typically) in some of these dimensions. Director Alessandro Bavari delivers an aesthetically mesmerizing, occasionally funny and frequently disturbing tour of situations like “simultaneity in the twisting and null moment” and "side effects and dynamics induced by brief and sudden manifestations of micro-black holes." Good times.
“Elevate” (2024) - Meanwhile in the “please just show me something pretty” category, the new single from electronic artist Alex Banks arrives accompanied by a vivid music video from Berlin visual collective Transforma. Using cleverly framed natural imagery and other visual tricks, the video captures dazzling refraction of light through a variety of textures and situations, including what almost looked like the satisfying shattering of a mobile phone screen into a jillion shards, not that I have anything against mobile phones, I just...like seeing...certain things shatter, okay anyway.
“Floppy Diskette” (2011) - One time I was kicking off a DJ set at an outdoor party, very late in the evening, and instead of playing my first track, I accidentally played the audio from this clip. Ooopsie! It comes from a 1993 videotape about how to use computers, edited down to its essential bits by Milton Croissant.
“Silence” (2021) - Filmmaker Reinis Kaspars spent two weeks hiking alone in the Swiss Alps, and managed to shoot a gorgeous short film about the experience as he went along. The film snuck past my cynical defenses by way of some really spectacular nature cinematography; meanwhile Kaspars delivers a quiet monologue throughout the film that manages the neat trick of being inspirational without seeming cloying or clichéd. Watch on the best screen you can find.
Exit Music
Sending you out this issue with the latest track from electronic musician Jamie xx, a collaboration with The Avalanches called “All You Children,” in which the aforementioned children are exhorted to come together and dance, because you know what, it feels good. It’s from Jamie xx’s forthcoming album In Waves, due out September 20.
Here's the YouTube playlist with this issue's recos. Please enjoy responsibly.
Until next time, I remain your friendly correspondent, thinking of you,
Scotto
Scotto Moore is the author of WILD MASSIVE, BATTLE OF THE LINGUIST MAGES, and YOUR FAVORITE BAND CANNOT SAVE YOU.
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