The ticking of time, sand dunes as desert, a trip to the beach, a trip around Auckland, murderous revenge, and some bad-ass shredding.
Addison “It’s Only a Matter of Time”
First, a line from Addison’s bio: “Addison’s swift takeover of the music scene began at Parachute 08 and the hype hasn’t stopped building.” It might then come as a surprise that “It’s Only a Matter of Time” was their only funded video. The song is kind of screamo, and the video is super earnest. It features lots of timepieces because, you know, clocks = time. The video feels very safe, very ordinary – not the work of a band who were taking over the music scene.
Director: Ivan Slavov
Nga Taonga Sound & Vision
An Emerald City “Qing Song”
Instrumental songs don’t normally get NZ On Air funding, but along came “Qing Song”, a hit on student radio. The video takes the form of an epic desert adventure film, taking the same pick’n’mix inspiration from Asian cinema, just as the song borrows from Asian music. The black sand dunes of Te Henga – Bethells stand in for an actual desert, and footage of performers in traditional costume are overlaid on the dune scenes. The video ends up being as unusual as the song, but for whatever reason it didn’t lead to any more video funding.
Director: Sam Handley
Nga Taonga Sound & Vision
Annabel Fay “Show Me The Right Way”
And here’s another song using a world music sound, with sitars and what I’m going to naively describe as a South African style choral sound. Annabel plays a woman who’s just left her boyfriend. She drives off into the bush in a classic car, the kind the middle-aged guys are nuts about. Annabel picks up two hitch-hikers and the three of them hang out with a biker gang. This leads Annabel to feel kindly towards her bae who begs for forgiveness and she accepts. Watch out, Annabel! It’s a trap! Worst thing about this song: at 2:42 it sounds like there’s going to be a big cheesy key change, but the song chickens out and misses a perfect opportunity to finish with a bang.
Director: Marc Swadel
Antiform featuring MC Twin Cam “Crash”
There’s something really enjoyable about this video. It’s based around hooning around Auckland, and the video opens with the ubiquitous timelapse shot of the motorway from the Hopetoun overbridge. The rest of the video is the singer moodily shot in a car at night, mixed with footage of a car driving around Auckland on a rainy night. So of course everything is covered in water and looks beautiful and urban. There’s an implication that the car is urgently leaving the city, and while the video ends with shattered glass the cause of the breakage is left ambiguous.
Director: James Solomon
Nga Taonga Sound & Vision
Autozamm “Drama Queen”
The “Drama Queen” video is an animated job, created by the talented guys of Mukpuddy. The story follows a man who is locked up in an insane asylum as a boy after murdering his baby sibling (!). Years later he returns to his old home, only to discover there’s a noisy band playing in the pub downstairs. Therefore, he must murder them. Good – I like it when crazed murderers have justifiable motivation. The man turns into a classic Victorian top-hatted murderer, and sets to work disposing of the members of Autozamm, all recognisably drawn. It’s a fun video with a pleasing ending, but suffers the problem of being more entertaining than the song itself.
Director: Mukpuddy
Beneath the Silence “The Five Points”
And here are the 2008 Rockquest winners, Christchurch metalcore group Beneath the Silence. Their song is serious and dramatic and excessive, exactly the sort of thing that a teen metal band would produce. The video has the band playing the song in a graffitied bunker, while a group of black-clad (emo!) antagonists come and run through their instruments, knocking a few things over. The star of the band is Sophia Di, the 15-year-old guitarist who can shred like a mofo. She’s not quite given enough space in the video, as if the sneakers of the extras are more interesting to look at.
Director: Richard Bell
Nga Taonga Sound & Vision