The Single Life: Violent Soho, Flight Facilities & More

Gather round children, while we tell you of a magical time when mythical generous beasts called ‘record companies’ would give ludicrous amounts of money to musicians – musicians! – to head off to Sri Lanka or Morocco, hire a yacht, crew it with supermodels, and make a three minute commercial for a song. This age of excess is gone, replaced with promo clips often made with a borrowed Go-Pro, and the band’s iPhones. The upside of that is some of realised they now have to use some imagination to get noticed – or call in favours from the documentary director you met in the Centrelink queue, and/or the actor/barista at your local café.

Local boys Flight Facilities apparently know semi-famous overseas comedians as well, so they get recent tourist Reggie Watts to mime Sunshine (Future Classic) while puttering around Venice Beach being eccentric. Song is polished, bright and shiny, unlike some of the streetscapes illustrated.

Of darker intent, and adding the cryptic storyline to get further cred - and credit points on their film course - Sharon Van Etten’s Your Love Is Killing Me (Mistletone) has suitably serious indie actress Carla Juri somewhat bloodstained and doing the single-shot walk of the neighbourhood over Van Etten’s restrained troubled soul in song.

In a handy coincidence, Davey Lane has friends in that shortfilm community as well, and found his She’s A Timebomb (Field Recordings) fitted the narrative of Bonnie Moir’s visuals too well not to use. Tune also shows Lane’s broad tastes, Timebomb’s new wave chop giving way to a bit of psychedelic jamming in the middle, before the tabs wear off and it happily arcs up again. Nifty, messy, pretty damn good.

Then there’s time-honoured ‘band on tour’ travelogue video. Which is fine here, as Violent Soho seem to have been going for the ‘hardest work guys in showbiz’ title in the year since the Hungry Ghost album came out. Eightfold (I Oh You) celebrates the album going gold, although an element of this clip suggests something green may have been appreciated as much. Crowds go mad, band go off. Best of luck to them.

Or kids will always work cheap. Bombay Bicycle Club go for the well-tested primary school play motif. Home By Now (Island) adds the layer of said pupils – and likely many of the band’s audience – perhaps having no idea of the movie they’re tributing. Needs more Hal and Dave. And is it just me, or are the band getting further from being just an inoffensive indie pop band into believing they’re making BIG STATEMENTS saying nothing? Because, fuck knows we need another Muse.

One band who maybe started this whole low-budget-but-clever round of one-shot video making, perhaps to the level of obscuring anything musical they actually achieved, OK Go trade in the treadmills for rather neat little scooters and a camera drone for I Won’t Let You Down (Capitol/Paracadute). Somebody also remembered the old Busby Berkeley dance moves and overhead camera shots to further gain your attention. But get to the end of this column, and then come back and see if you remember anything of the song itself. Or maybe a couple of million views on YouTube is the meaning of success now.

Of course, there’s nothing simpler than the bloke singing with guitar song and/or clip. For whatever reasons, Dan Sultan knocks out an acoustic postscript to his Blackbird album of tunes apparently best-suited to the solo artiste mode. Mountaintop (Liberation) is the work of a craftsman, no adornment necessary to the delivery of words that mean something by a man that means what he’s saying.

Or you can just make a racket. The Bennies are a punk band. No, not the angst-ridden world-view of what often currently goes under that banner. Heavy Disco (Poison City) is smashing a few cans, nearly throwing up in a taxi, then going home to quaff a few more as it’s certainly cheaper and probably more fun anyway. The night’s journey is illustrated by loudly yelling about it, and somebody reckoning they can make a noise like a Theremin with Garageband.

That way of living may lead to a feeling of Emptiness (Create/Control). But Daniel Lee Kendall’s sometimes delicate voice makes the thought process a thing of light touch and acceptance of life’s puzzles. He looks you in the eye as he thinks it through, and you look back. Conversation ensues.

Of course, if you want a band who can ponder on such weighty matters for hours, and then spend a few more worrying about why their college flatmate’s sister didn’t like them – even if their uni days are now from a previous century – Belle & Sebastian are still here to soundtrack your evening at home watching repeats of The Bachelor, and wondering how the good times happening elsewhere are going. The Party Line (Matador/Remote Control) is both the sound of a mirror ball rotating, and the rattle of your kettle boiling for that next cup of tea.