Brixton, atopos, and Kay Sage [April 24]
Recommendations from Me
This month I wanted to share some of the music videos I love. Most were shown to me by friends; I’m very grateful to them. Please reply with any music videos that are special to you, I would love to discover more!
Aside from releasing two of my favourite albums (which I’m sure I’ll write about in future letters,) Björk has a wonderfully eclectic and creative collection of music videos, often produced in collaboration with visual effects artists, and prominent film directors (i.e. Michel Gondry). In Big Time Sensuality, Björk dances on a slow moving truck through the streets of New York City. In Pagan Poetry, we see her singing, and a series of piercings, with fluctuating degrees of abstraction. Her atopos video is dissonant, hypnotic, and… fungal.
Jonas Lindstroem’s video for Peggy Gou’s Starry Night features a series of beautifully composed vignettes in and around Seoul. His video for Kendrick Lamar’s ELEMENT paints a much harder world in the same careful strokes.
The music video to Major Lazer’s Get Free is a love letter to Jamaica, centred on the nights and days of the capital, Kingston.
London, and Brixton most of all, is blissful and ecstatic in the music videos of Joy Crookes. I return to Feet Don’t Fail Me Now, When You Were Mine, and Skin often.
In the music video to Jacques Brel’s Ne Me Quitte Pas, the singer begs — weeping, desperate — for his partner to stay. It remains one of the most tender and vulnerable performances I’ve ever seen.
The videos of dance/music group Jungle are, of course, deeply wonderful: see here.
When I watch The Adventures of Rain Dance Maggie by the Red Hot Chilli Peppers, I badly want to be dancing clumsily on an LA rooftop near the sea.
Recommendations from Others
Fortis 2019
‘The delicate, intimate soundtrack of If Beale Street Could Talk.’
Echo 2021
‘Some artists: Max Ernst, Kay Sage, Yves Tanguy, Leonara Carrington, Dorothea Tanning.’
Simon 2021
‘1) Telling people that are important to you that they are, 2) people watch from a cafe, 3) setting up an anonymous feedback form.’
Sonia 2024
‘Guatemalan singers: Gaby Moreno and Ricardo Arjona.’
Finn 2021
‘Challenge yourself in fewer things, but challenge yourself more in the things that are integral to the person you really want to be.'
