Music

6 awesome past and present videos you might have missed, with Surinam, Linda Perhacs and more

by Jesse Locke

Living on Video is a weekly column that unearths forgotten VHS gems, Vimeo obscurities, and YouTube oddities from the musical ether—all obsessively curated by Weird Canada music editor Jesse Locke.

This week’s selections are another mixed bag, from coast-spanning scuzz-rock to cult faves of the ’70s, a terrifying campfire and the triumphant return of the band responsible for this. Enjoy?

 

Surinam – “Midnight Train to Buffalo”

Surinam are one of the most exciting newish bands in Toronto. Rising from the ashtray of the late, great Anagram, their sparse recorded output to date includes a few no-fi demos, a shockingly awesome GZA cover and now this video. Without any overt narrative, nondescript street corners and train tracks pass by, as singer Matt Mason wanders through back alleys like a man with a secret. The movement of the visuals matches the song’s razor-wire chug, with a slurred Mark E. Smith monotone up front in the mix.

 

Linda Perhacs – “Freely”

Linda Perhacs’ 1970 LP Parallelograms is a stone-cold psychedelic classic. Honestly, if you’ve never heard this, drop everything you’re doing and take a drift. After languishing in obscurity for decades (while working as a dental hygienist), Perhacs’ music was rediscovered at the dawn of the aughts and has continued to expand minds ever since. In March, she returns with her first new recordings in over 40 years on an album for Asthmatic Kitty. If this song/video is any indication, her goosebump-inducing quiver is still in fine form.

 

Tuxedomoon – “No Tears”

Superior Viaduct continues its absolute domination of the reissue game with new editions of Tuxedomoon’s first two EPs. The unhinged San Francisco synth-punks emerged in the late ’70s as peers of the Screamers and the Units while sounding like a campier Cabaret Voltaire. This barrage of archival footage and photos come from the band’s previous DVD reissue, Found Films, and the music hasn’t lost an iota of its urgency. No tears for the creatures of the night!

 

Partli Cloudi – “Parasite Map”

Toronto’s Arachnidiscs Recordings proudly claims the tagline “Music For and By Weirdos since 1999.” One of their latest releases, Partli Cloudi’s Two Moron Ever Nose, definitely fits the bill. In the span of 1:27, this surrealist fever dream manages to combine nightmarish masks, pitch-shifted poetry, animal sound effects, and a recipe for tacos. Terry Riley’s Autodreamographical Tales comes to mind as a possible touchpoint, yet even that won’t prepare you for lines like “Take therefore no thought for the morrow, for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself.”

 

Shearing Pinx – “Marked Man”

Vancouver’s Shearing Pinx are an underground institution with an onslaught of releases that not even Discogs can keep up with. This fan-made video popped up a few days ago, yet the song is taken from the band’s 2010 album Void White on frontman Nic Hughes’ Isolated Now Waves imprint. Taking a cue from TV Carnage, this gun fight supercut features the greatest hits of the dangerously peaceful Steven Seagal.

 

Cibo Matto – “MFN”

Finally, feast your eyes on this technicolour blitz from Japan’s Cibo Matto. These ’90s nutters from the extended Grand Royal Records family—Butter 08 were always my personal fave—first reunited in 2011 at a benefit concert for the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami. Now, they’re gearing up for the release of Hotel Valentine, their first album in 15 years. Amidst the rest of the insanity, keep your ears peeled for a cameo from human beatbox Reggie Watts.