Kezia Barnett, the director of Goodshirt’s previous video “Buck It Up”, is back for another adventure inside her gothic world of dance.
Like “Buck It Up”, the “Cement” video is set inside an eerie old building – this time it’s a spooky looking house on a moonlit night. The band are playing outside the house which comes to the attention of a Rapunzel-like resident, who flips down her long blonde braid for singer Gareth to climb.
They curl up in bed together, but then Rapunzel mysteriously vanishes, leaving Gareth alone in the bedroom to face five dancing 1940s housewives who menacingly iron a tea towel with his face printed on it. And just to make things odder for poor Gareth, the women then begin to dance with their ironing boards, and then turn into 1980s disco goth vamps. Chaos ensues.
While all this is going on, the rest of the band are still playing away, chipping in backing vocals. But we only see them via a photo on the wall of the house, suggesting they’ve been magically transported inside the photo.
I’m slightly confused by the video’s ending. Gareth finds a dark-haired woman drowning in a bath and rescues her. Is she the Rapunzel lady with her blonde utility wig removed? Well, whoever she is, she’s the girl of Gareth’s dreams. They embrace, and we discover the rest of the band frozen in the framed photo.
I like the style of this video. It’s a lot more ambitious than your typical New Zealand music video. It’s always good to see dancing in a music video – especially when it’s not done as a parody of dancing in music videos. This video almost inspires me to drag out my ironing board and rhythmically flail about with it.
Best bit: the fierce dance of the irons.
Director: Kezia Barnett
Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision
Next… the chook look.