Elephant - 'Time Will Tell'
Info: Our latest round-up of the best Irish music videos from the last two weeks is here featuring more delightful visuals and inspiring concepts from Dundalk's Elephant, Dublin-based indie-folk quartet Orchid Collective, the amazing NC Grey and always rockin' Belfast / London duo REWS, I hope you enjoy....
We kick off with the new single and video from Shane Clarke, aka Elephant, whose track 'Time Will Tell' continues his new journey into heavier sounding spheres from his gentler folk-pop origins on debut LP HyperGiant back in 2015. Normally when an artist mentions 'low budget' for a music video you expect a VHS imitation or old movie footage, which sometimes really doesn't do the song justice. Instead Clarke embarked on a project that quite frankly, money can't buy, the video not only does the song justice, but will function as a snapshot in time many years from now that reflects the burgeoning creativity of his hometown, and this is how he did it;
"Certain monetary circumstances forced me have to think outside the box for the music video for this single release. Too broke to hire someone and lacking the skills to make something myself I turned to the thriving art community in my home town of Dundalk. I canvassed for local artists, offering a chance to be involved in an art project to do with the new Elephant video and to my surprise and delight I had 28 artists confirmed within a weekend!
Each designed and filmed their own mini-movie depicting a lyric from the song, chosen by them from a list of 28 words. The medium was totally up to them, along with the interpretation of the word. The constantly changing of tone and colour in the collage of clips ended up portraying the chaotic emotional turmoil the song is trying to convey better than I could ever have done!"
Orchid Collective - L.A.Z.Y.
Whilst Orchid Collective's status has grown at an impressive rate since last year, it has been a cause of bemusement to me that the escalation hasn't happened at a faster pace, but judging by their inclusion on specially curated Spotify playlists with the release of new single 'L.A.Z.Y.' you sense that is about to change. They are the indie-rock band that you are genuinely gunning for, and with their latest single they've opted for a noticeably more pop edge, and a working one at that, this is earworm central, and contrasts slightly to their earlier material in that sense, showing that they can shift between both high quality indie-folk and pop with great ease. Refreshingly they have song-writing talent in abundance, extremely tight harmonies and hooks galore.
NC Grey - Adonis
Our record collection at home is fully stocked with soul, blues and vocal jazz classics from Julie London, Nina, Aretha, Roberta Flack and many more, so when I heard NC Grey's Magic the EP last month I was in heaven. At the end of every year I always make a point of imagining the songs, EP's and albums that have not yet been written or released but I know will rock my world in the following 12 months. NC Grey's EP is one of the ones that was possibly in its infancy at the end of 2016 and here we are now, and single 'Adonis' ticks every box. The reason I mentioned the record collection earlier is because I would love to have a hard choice to make in pulling one of her many records from the shelf and putting it on the turntable, fingers crossed that will be the case at some stage in the future. Listen to and read the full review of Magic the EP here.
REWS - 'Your Tears'
Belfast and London pair REWS, Shauna Tohill and Colettee Williams, seem incapable of writing just any old rock song, it always has to have a slam at the end and rip through you at a frenetic pace from the start, I can live with that. With 'Your Tears' it feels like they've accentuated the pop-punk chaos they are so adept at which we heard hints of on previous singles 'Miss You In The Dark' and 'Shine', and the hard-rock drone which kicks in at exactly 1:59 on the new single is the business. Just like Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson back in 2007, a live experience is on my to do list for 2018.
To view our last selection of Irish music videos on The VidList, head over here https://thebestofmusicandfilm.blogspot.ie/2017/10/the-irish-vidlist-rosborough-bad-bones-ivy-bloom-EDEN-VJ-Jackson.html
