Bullet train to nowhere, Wellington apocalypse, hidden songstress, angry old man, and woman about town.
Continue reading April 2007: Jackie Bristow, Jakob, Kitsch, Ladi6, Little Bushman
Tag: Mark Albiston
The Fanatics “TV”
Like the Fanatics’ earlier song “Models”, “TV” is another catchy electronic song with simple, repetitive lyrics. The video takes its inspiration from the titular home appliance and puts the Fanatics in a dark, shadowy world, surrounded by animated circuit diagrams and creepy stop-motion insects.
The band are found performing in an anechoic chamber, which I assume is the one at Auckland University. An anechoic chamber is basically a chamber of silence, used for acoustic testing. It’s a room with all surfaces covered with foam wedges. About a metre above the floor there’s a wire mesh to stand on. It’s so incredibly quiet in there that you can hear your own heart beat. And they say if you spend too long in there you start hallucinating and go crazy.
It also has a vaguely sinister look and feel to it, which perfectly suits the vibe of the video. And of course the only other organic creature is the super creepy spiders. If it’s not the enslaving technology, it’s the spiders that’ll come for you. Yeah, it’s a metaphor for television.
Best bit: the bouncy mesh floor of the chamber being put to good rock use.
Director: Mark Albiston
Nga Taonga Sound & Vision
Next… most likely to be famous.
The Fanatics “Models”
This electro-gothic song is probably best known as the theme tune for New Zealand’s Next Top Model, what with the repeated lyrics being simply “Give me models! Give me money!”.
The video, by award-winning director Mark Albiston, forgets about the money and puts the emphasis on the models. But this is not the world of smizing. Things are much more sinister here.
In a dark, shadowy factory, a truckload of models have been dropped off. They’re all identically dressed, all walking in unison. They almost seem like aliens and it’s a reminder that, like elite athletes, professional models are where they are partly because of freakish physical characteristics.
Because the song is largely instrumental, the video wisely doesn’t dwell on the band for too long. We get few glimpses of the duo energetically playing the song in a dark room, which just adds to the overall intrigue of the video.
Things get weirder and creepier and Frankensteinier, with the models moving through a production line and end up being dropped in model-size preserving jars, with one sold to a little girl who has the exact same hair and makeup of her catwalk cousins.
The video is ridiculously good looking. Every shot is fabulous. It obviously cost more than $5000, but it’s a reminder of the sort of cool shit that can be achieved in New Zealand.
Best bit: 0:52, the models come walking down the hallway. Fierce.
Director: Mark Albiston
Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision
Next… oranges and lemons.