Streams o’ the Week

Crystal Castles – “Affection” – III (2012; Casablanca)

To make up for pushing the release of their album back by a week, the Ontario-based electronic-duo revealed another song from their third LP, III. ‘Affection’ is unnerving with its changing rhythm and Alice Glass and Ethan Kath’s trippy vocals. Glass’ vocals stand out more on this track than on their previously-released “Plague” and “Wrath of God”. If the song didn’t sound so ghostly, it might be described as short and sweet, but when it comes to Crystal Castles you should expect an expression of synth-heavy melancholy that gives you chills and stirs you up at the same time.

 

Feist “Graveyard” music video – Metals (2011; Arts and Crafts) 

In the spirit of Halloween, Feist released the creepy new video for “Graveyard” off her Polaris Prize-winning album Metals. The video acts like a haunted photograph, with band members appearing and then disappearing from a black and white forest scene. Most of the video is a longshot of the entire ‘photo’ with some close-ups throughout. The video also features some weird pixelated birds and a butterfly flying over the scene. Someday, maybe, someone can explain what it all means.

 

How to Destroy Angels –  Live studio performance of “Keep It Together” – An Omen (2012; Columbia) 

The in-studio performance of the latest single from How to Destroy Angels might as well be the official music video for how identical it is to the original. The quartet, made up Nine Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross, Rob Sheridan and Reznor’s wife, Mariqueen Maandig, makes its first appearance since the band’s last video was released in 2010. Maandig’s haunting vocals paired with Ross and Reznor on synths and guitar is — in true Reznor style — flawless.

 

 

Snoop Lion – “La La La” music video – Reincarnated (2013; Doggystyle) 

When did Snoop Lion get so cute? Snoop Lion’s latest music video, directed by Eli Roth, features a bunch of smiling kids dressed in a variety of costumes for a strange school play. There’s a lot wrong with that sentence, and the result is no Sesame Street sing-a-long, but rather a reggae-singing Snoop surrounded by his new small friends and some obscene animations of fruit. This probably won’t be the last time the Rastafari Snoop surprises and scandalizes everyone, but it might be the most adorable.

 

Kylie Minogue – The Abbey Road Sessions – (2012; Parlophone)

Australia’s Queen of Pop Kylie Minogue steps out of her dance-pop bubble with her new acoustic greatest hits album. Fans can enjoy orchestral renditions of 16 tracks — recorded last year at the Abbey Road Studios — that reflect her 25-year-long career as a pop icon. It’s always refreshing to see a pop star perform songs that are stripped to their core without the distractions of pulsing beats and synths, and Minogue pulls it off in this project. The album also includes the new single “Flower.”

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