VIDEO OF THE WEEK – ABORTED TORTOISE

Chosen by DJ Monk

Despite the current lockdown, we are still receiving a healthy bundle of submissions for our coveted ‘Video Of The Week’ title. While some artists are trying to find new ways of visually interpreting their songs, others obviously have had the guts of their filming completed in advance of the global quarantine, with the finishing touches being added in isolated post-production. This week’s selection once again sees a balance of these two approaches….

Our lead offering comes from young Australian punks Aborted Tortoise – now that surely has to rank as one of our favourite new band names of the year – and their new single, ‘Violent Consumer’, from their current EP, ‘Scale Model Subsistence Vendor’, which itself was released just this past week via the Italian Goodbye Boozy label. Now, the concept behind the video is nothing new, as it’s basically a series of video clips pasted together, this time featuring old adverts intermingled with news and internet footage of the effects of the likes of the ‘Black Friday’ sales and the panic buying which served as the foreword to the current lockdown, when everyone and their granny suddenly decided that they need to buy every scrap of bog roll on the planet! But, it’s a timely commentary on the human condition and particularly the selfishness which certain situations can bring out in people:

Earlier in the week, I was engaged in an online conversation about classic Eighties TV programmes – you know, the sort that used to dominate our Saturday evening and Sunday afternoon viewing in the days before Simon Cowell et al? Well, our next offering could well have featured on the soundtrack of the likes of ‘Knight Rider’. ‘Airwolf’ or, more especially, ‘Street Hawk’. It comes from Vancouver-based self-styled “Western hard soul experience” Two Car Train, who present us with the wonderfully cheesy ‘Gone Away’. On the evidence of this, and the rest of their recently released ‘Off The Rails’ album, that Eighties-style combination of annoyingly parping synths and out-of-place guitar shredding certainly hasn’t gone anywhere (except maybe to Canada’s Pacific coastline!):

Our next video highlights some of the issues facing artists wishing to make videos for new releases in these quarantined times. Bristol quartet Phoxjaw were due to film the clip to go with their latest single, ‘Triple AAA’, around the time the lockdown came into place, and so had to come up with a Plan B, as guitarist Josh Gallop explained to us:

“We were left in a sticky situation when lockdown was announced. It was time to shoot a music video for our next single, however, unable to meet up in the same place or leave our homes, we decided in true Phoxjaw fashion to create something obscure from our own homes. Using self-shot footage and throwing around the weirdest scenarios we could muster we came up with the music video to ‘Triple AAA’. Edited by Danny [Garland -vocalist and bassist] and finalised by Kieran [Gallop – drummer], in our usual fashion we didn’t let a setback prevent us from creating something uniquely strange.”

Our fourth selection comes from another band who were forced to adapt to the current circumstances – Northern Ireland groove metallers Cursed Sun. They had intended to record a video for the song ‘Replicant’ last month, with a view to releasing it as the second single from their ÜR-approved ‘Vendetta‘ EP. Instead, they have opted to release the now highly appropriate ‘Fallen City’, with the accompanying video showing frontman Andrew ‘Jones’ Cassidy “walking” through the now deserted streets of his home city of Belfast:

Our final offering this time around is not actually a new song, but rather a re-imagined video for one previously released. It comes from Ukrainian metalcore monsters Jinjer and is for the single ‘Perennial’. Yes, we know the video for that came out last year – but it has now be re-imagined by fan Mychailo Halinin – in Lego! As Jinjer bass player Eugene Abdukhanov said: “Who has not played with LEGO as a kid? Who has not secretly dreamed of starring in their own LEGO MOVIE!? What a wonderful gift and pleasure this was to watch and now to release Perennial LEGO to the world … these are indeed very strange days but thank you Mychailo for making our day a little bit more bright and positive!”

That’s your lot for this week. Hope you have enjoyed the new sights and sounds we have brought to you this week. Until next time, keep ‘er lit, keep ‘er between the hedges and #StayTheFuckHome…