I like a good animated video and this one works really well. It’s a good looking video and it tells a story.
We meet the hero of the story waking up in the desert. He’s just survived a plane crash and discovers a briefcase full of money. Not that it will do him much good when he’s alone in a hot, barren landscape.
He thinks he spies a lush, wet oasis, but, yes, it turns out to be a mirage, complete with an ominous skeleton hanging from a dead tree. This sparks off a hallucination where he plays skulls like a glockenspiel, but he comes back to reality and trudges on. It reminds me a bit of the Sola Rosa video for “Don’t Leave Home”, another slightly surreal desert adventure, only it’s from the skeleton’s perspective.
Eventually the traveller comes across a detention camp, so he carefully removes his fake moustache and replaces it with a “summer moustache” which looks exactly the same as the previous one (a winter moustache?).
A tank rumbles past, but there doesn’t seem to be any sign of the detention camp. Instead he ends up in a place with giant Easter Island-like statues, where upon it rains. The waters rise fast and high, sweeping him away and scattering his money to the tides. Is this the end of our antihero? No, he wakes up on a pleasant beach, being pecked by a pukeko.
The video was directed by James Littlemore and Steve Scott and it looks so good. Many of Salmonella Dub’s videos had a low-budget look to them, like the sort of thing that was quickly filmed in the middle of a tour. But this one feels like a lot of time and effort has gone into it. And as a result, it’s simple, clear and very stylish video.
Best bit: the hallucinated skull solo, where the higher floating skulls make higher notes.
Directors: James Littlemore, Steve Scott
Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision
Next… f’n oats.