Oingo Boingo's "Insanity"

Oingo Boingo

I can't really go through Halloween without watching Oingo Boingo's video to "Insanity". It's still one of my favorite videos and seems the best example of the much darker part of Oingo Boingo's personality. While the edited version of the song erodes some of the album version's saturating and resonating power, it's still a very punchy version that works well enough for a music video version. The stop-motion animation is done well and contributes to the song's subject matter quite well - people as puppets, fantasy/reality, fairy tales, the uncanny, the grotesque, etc. Basically, there's a lot here. This song isn't out of character for Oingo Boingo, who made a long and phenomenal career out of addressing these subjects and others, but I think the dark, dark tone of the song (as well as the whole Boingo [1994] album) was rather new. But at the core it was still very much Oingo Boingo, and that is a wonderful thing.  

Grinderman's "Heathen Child"

The new album from Nick Cave's Grinderman project will be out in the U.S. on September 14 - now, less than a week away. To help whet your appetite a bit, I thought I'd share the music video for the LP's first single, "Heathen Child". John Hillcoat directs, chalking up yet another collaboration with Nick Cave. For anyone expecting the "Heathen Child" video to look like Hillcoat's adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's The Road, you're in for a shock. This video is something else entirely. Where The Road avoids showing us the apocalyptic destruction that created the bleak, dystopian world of our future, "Heathen Child" presents an apocalypse that could send even the strongest souls into outer darkness.

This one's not for the kids.

Do you ever get the feeling that Nick Cave sometimes doesn't wanna be liked?

How to Destroy Angels

How to Destroy Angels is the collaborative project of Trent Reznor, his wife Mariqueen Maandig, and Atticus Ross. They've completed their first EP and, in the spirit of Nine Inch Nails's The Slip, have released it as a free download. The download is in 320 kbps - mighty nice of them. Or, for $2, you can get an HD download. A CD will be available July 6, and a vinyl at a yet undisclosed date after that.

The EP opens with the chilling, attention-grabbing "The Space in Between", which sets an ominous, heavy tone for the EP that doesn't let up much. It makes sense that a video was shot to this track, and the video pushes the song into even more gruesome and dark territory. "The Space in Between" is a standout track, for sure, but is hardly the only song deserving of praise.

The music often echoes NIN's Ghosts I-IV album. "Parasite", "BBB", and "The Believer" are songs that seem to channel the musical ideas in Ghosts I-IV most overtly, though Maandig's vocal contributions take these songs immediately in new directions. This is not to say that How to Destroy Angels is NIN in disguise - it's not. How to Destroy Angels naturally contains NIN sounds - how could it not? - but that's what I'm hoping for in a Trent Reznor project. That Reznor takes a backseat on vocals, contributing backing vocals on a couple tracks, and primarily contributing to the music is always exciting; I've always thought that Reznor excels foremost as a musician, technician, and producer. So, to have his wife's lovely vocals hypnotize and mesmerize on tracks like "The Space in Between" and "A Drowning" while Reznor and Ross work their music magic seems a glorious thing.

Overall, this first release from How to Destroy Angels is a fine piece of work. This is rather weighty, dark, serious stuff - even "BBB" with its somewhat amusing line: "listen to the sound of my big black boots." That this first release is an EP heightens its appeal, for it's enough to satisfy, but leaves you excited, curious, and hoping for more.

Pitchfork Presents: The National

So, has everyone heard The National's new album, High Violet? I'd recommend doing so; it's a good album. What's more, some nice videos were shot of The National performing a few of the new tracks at an abandoned castle in New York. The videos are quite good, and the songs are too. You can check out all three songs at Pitchfork. My personal favorite of the three is "Anyone's Ghost", featured below.

Also, The National recently performed a benefit concert for the Red Hot Organization, filmed by Chris Hegedus and DA Pennebaker. Here's the performance of "Slow Show", from their 2007 album Boxer.

Short Film for Massive Attack's "Saturday Come Slow"

Just wanted to remind everyone that Massive Attack's new album, Heligoland, is out and it is fantastic. Really, it is a great piece of work, though some reviewers have been less enthusiastic about it, pining away for the glory days of Mezzanine and Protection. Hypnotic, mysterious, brooding, groovy and every other adjective you wish of a Massive Attack album. Not as dark and menacing as Mezzanine, but smoother, with some sounds that remind me of Portishead's Third (which makes sense since Adrien Utley contributes on Heligoland). Like Third, Heligoland has less trip hop, though "Splitting the Atom" channels that pretty well, I think. So some "die-hard" fans might seem grumpy; I guess that is the problem with some alleged die-hard fan, they want them to just keep churning out the same disc rather than move around, expand and explore. For me, I'm more often very excited to hear a band move in new directions and try new things, even if that means they come up a bit short sometimes. But I don't think Heligoland came up short at all. For me, the album is just fabulous.

Anyway, what I would also like to draw your attention to is the great short film by Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin for their song "Saturday Come Slow". It features former Guantanamo Bay detainee, Ruhal Ahmed, who was interrogated using music at painfully high volume. Ahmed reflects on his experience in Gitmo and on his reintegration into society. The effects on the body due to high volume music are also discussed. All combined it is a fascinating short that contributes nicely to the discussion of torture and harsh interrogation that has already been addressed by good films like Standard Operating Procedure and Taxi to the Dark Side.

I have been wondering how music artists feel about their music being used in harsh interrogation and torture. I doubt the military bothered to ask them if it was okay to use their stuff. Guess they just assumed that everyone would be on board with their patriotic efforts to protect freedom. Maybe that's too snarky of me to say. But I doubt the military thought about it much since some troops in Iraq also got pumped up for the day by cranking Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries", like Kilgore's boys in Apocalypse Now (Did anyone tell the military that Kilgore wasn't the character to emulate in that film?). After spending some time studying harsh interrogation and torture, I find little that's noble or patriotic about what has gone on in Gitmo, Abu Ghraib, and elsewhere.