Dan Deacon's hyperactive laptop-pop is a many bounding thing - high BPMs, manic melodies, a whirl of colours. It takes a minute to adjust, find the beat in all the madness, pull out the core of the thing. The new clip for 'Padding Ghost' steers away from this fluoro wonderland, slowing things down. It's got naff fingerpuppets. It's indie. It's twee. But it's not too manic, it's not too crazed. Relatively speaking.
It's directed by Melbourne-based artist and filmmaker Natalie van den Dungen. Previously, she's directed clips for Darren Hanlon, Ned Collete, Paris Wells and Ouch! My Face!. The Deacon clip should push her name in the noses of other interested parties:
For the sake of absolutely arbitrary comparison - although it was released on roughly the same day - here's the new clip by Jay-Z. Or, rather, Jay-Z featuring Rihanna and Kanye West. As if it weren't enough that it's the second single off Jay-Z's new record, The Blueprint 3 - the final in the trilogy. As if it weren't enough that the record will be released on September 11th. Jay-Z thought he needed a couple of other names to see if he can't blow the chart into the stratosphere.
The clip runs with a vaguely topical theme of revolution and unrest - they must all be cut up that, on current news, the recession has passed, with only half-arsed protests around the world over the past 18 months. Or maybe it just looked good on film: let's put together our own revolution to be televised. The song's deceptively by-the-numbers on first listen - Rihanna does the 'girly harmony bits' for the radio hooks, Jay-Z does the main verse rhymes, Kanye drops in towards the end, kindly siphoning off some of his ego for Jay-Z's usage. But come back again and all the pieces fall into place. This will burn up the charts, once the worm-like bass burrows its way into enough brains.