Music Videos You May Have Missed in 2015

Bubblegum goddesses. Wannabe Debbie Harrys. Dystopian mental illnesses. Solo rock shows in a mystical desert landscape...These are the videos that stood out in 2015 for their strangeness, abstraction, and beauty. And good tunes, of course. 

1. Petite Noir - Chess

The Cape Town artist Petite Noir (Yannick Ilunga) sings cool, dramatic, hypnotic pop in what feels like a late-80s instructional VHS tape. The slowly bubbling (literally, bubbles) breakup song was the first single off Petite Noirโ€™s first album, La Vie Est Belle / Life Is Beautiful. 

2. Son Lux - You Don't Know Me

God, donโ€™t you hate it when your boyfriend doesnโ€™t understand youโ€™re a terrifying bubblegum goddess? โ€œYou Donโ€™t Know Me,โ€ starring Orphan Blackโ€™s Tatiana Maslany, is creepy, but somehow relatable. Ultimately, says director Nathan Johnson says the video wants to explore the โ€œempty ritualsโ€ of relationships, and to a larger degree, religion. โ€œYou Donโ€™t Know Meโ€ comes off Son Luxโ€™s (Ryan Lottโ€™s) fourth studio album Bones

3. HONNE - Coastal Love

โ€œCoastal Loveโ€ feels part fashion film, part white-collar crime, and part psychedelic deep-ocean love story. The words โ€œIโ€™ll be waiting for you, my love, on this New York City coastโ€ play over images of a dark & dreamy Montauk motel. This is one of the few times I think, โ€œIf Iโ€™m going to pass out on the beach with a stranger, going in a lustful haze with a weird sea creature on my face might be the best way to do it.โ€ โ€œCoastal Loveโ€ comes off HONNEโ€™s newest EP by the same name. 

4. ABRA - U Know

Abraโ€™s woozy R & B is paired with a ghost/love story between the Awful Recordsโ€™ it-girl and skater Lil Phillips. The DIY-feely music video is a collaboration with UNIF clothing, and comes off Abraโ€™s first album Roses

5. Lower Dens - To Die in L.A.

Magic 8 balls, wannabe movie stars, Debbie Harry obsessions, and a dead buck floating in a swimming poolโ€”such is the crazy world of โ€œTo Die in L.A.โ€ by Lower Dens. The first single off Lower Densโ€™ second record Escape from Evil is a synth-rock dream of a vulnerable Los Angeles. 

6. Unknown Mortal Orchestra - Can't Keep Checking My Phone

We start with the subtitle, โ€œItโ€™s one of those rare, unexplainable things,โ€ which suits the video well, in the best way. The videoโ€”directed by Dimitri Basilโ€”features a semi-sci-fi catalogue of mental illnesses and unexplained phenomena, including โ€œMeteorite Sicknessโ€ and โ€œVirtual Gender Disphoria.โ€ The song, which is full of catchy beats and seemingly-simple lyrics, becomes complicated against the โ€œtrading deckโ€ of the abstract, the dystopian, and the strange. Canโ€™t Keep Checking My Phone can be found on Unknown Mortal Orchestraโ€™s newest album Multi-Love.

7. Hurts - Lights

โ€œLightsโ€ is the age-old tale of being too fucked up and too alone in a half-populated bar. This time, instead of the classic random hook-up we get a graceful dance between matador and bull. This barโ€™s patrons also include a woman wrapped in a giant plastic bag and a zombie baseball player. โ€œLightsโ€ was the first single off the Manchester duo Hurtsโ€™s third album Surrender

8. The Soft Moon - Far

Is there anything more angsty than dark alleyways, disfigured men, and speeding down the 101 in a blue-and-red psychedelic daze? Dark and nostalgic, the video doesnโ€™t lose its depth. โ€œโ€˜Farโ€™ is the realm where unconscious desires reign, and the darkest tendencies take root and flourish. There, the โ€˜hIDeousโ€™ clone assaults the ego, the shadow self stalks the night, and a third Shroud embodies the two hemispheres locked in perpetual battle,โ€ director duo Y2K explains. โ€œFarโ€ comes off Soft Moonโ€™s album Deeper, which was released this February.

9. Alex G - Brite Boy

A soft tune called โ€œBrite Boyโ€ off Alex Gโ€™s newest album entitled Beach Music might suggest happy, carefree vibes. Instead, we get a dark cartoon by Elliot Bech, featuring cemetery rituals, desert funerals, and a watertower that welcomes you to a ghost town called โ€œFuck.โ€ Beach Music marks Alex Ginnascoliโ€™s seventh full-length album, and he gets weirder and darker every time. โ€œBrite Boyโ€ zines made by Bech himself will be sold along Alex Gโ€™s next tour.

10. LA Priest - Oino

Itโ€™s a strange desert landscape where curious beasts lurk in the canyons, and Sam Eastgate (aka Samuel Dust) plays high-pitched riffs in the desolate dirt. Directed by his brother Isaac Eastgate, the video was apparently inspired by their granddadโ€™s story of โ€œa man imprisoned in the desert who escapes by singing to a wizard.โ€ I feel the mystic vibes. โ€œOinoโ€ was LA Priestโ€™s debut single for a solo album eight years in the making. His album Inji is out now. 

11. Silicon - God Emoji

A papier machรฉ robot drives out to the middle of the forest to lay down catchy beats on the keyboard and the drums. Meanwhile, a weird dismembered pixelated head floats about an apartment building while a soft voice sings, โ€œDonโ€™t wanna go out on a Saturday night.โ€ โ€œGod Emojiโ€ is weird, but sticks with you through its abstractions and grooves. New Zealand multi-instrumentalist Kody Nielsonโ€™s debut album Personal Computer is out now.

12. Hot Chip - Need You Now

Hot Chipโ€™s newest album, Why Make Sense? fits well with the music video for โ€œNeed You Now.โ€ Itโ€™s strange, abstract, cyclical, and convoluted. A man runs after his double (or is his double chasing him?). He disappears, reappears, runs away, and is chased by a third double. Ultimately, however, the complex and the metaphysical fade into a simple story of refusing to let love go, as the words, โ€œNeed you now,โ€ repeat themselves in the background. โ€œNeed You Knowโ€ is off the British electronic music bandโ€™s sixth album. 

13. Julia Holter - Silhouette

Julia Holterโ€™s โ€œSilhouetteโ€ is jumpy, grainy, and indulgent in its shadows. It is also sentimental, nostalgic, and a melancholy kind of sweet. Holter sings, โ€œHe can hear me sing, though he is far, I'll never lose sight of him, a silhouette.โ€ The song and the video remind me how love can make you crazy--sprawled out across your desk with nothing to do but turn the lights on and off, close and open the blinds, and write clichรฉs about him in your diary. Holterโ€™s latest record Have You in my Wilderness was released this September.


Text by Keely Shinners