Music

6 awesome videos you might have missed, with Kappa Chow, Man Made Hill, 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.

Trigger warning: Most of this week’s selections are NSFW. It might be your last day at the office before the holiday break, but it doesn’t mean you should get careless. Save these for a time around the family hearth when the boss won’t be strolling past your desk.

 

Kappa Chow – “Punk As Fuck”

Sackville, New Brunswick has become a breeding ground for its own brand of scuzzy punk weirdness in the last few years thanks to the rat pack behind Killer Haze Records. Splintering off from the great Astral Gunk, a new group named Kappa Chow is currently embarking on a wave of mutilation across the east coast (including a stop on Monday, Dec. 23 at Handlebar in Toronto). This shredding live action from Sounds of the Marsh is a great introduction, with a garbage can bash-a-long to bring it all home.

 

Man Made Hill – “Counter Introduction”

The warped synth-pop and funk workouts of Toronto’s Randy Gagne a.k.a. Man Made Hill are a longtime personal fave. This (yep, probably NSFW) video from the prolific Huckleberry Friend comes over a year after MMH’s Poetry Competition cassette, yet there’s no better time to revisit it with this trippy clip. Layering images of children, animals and some risky business happening with a phone, it rides the fine line between awesome and uncomfortable.

 

Baby Cages – “Dark Arts”

For more Maritime chills, check out this (again, most likely) NSFW clip from Halifax/Toronto-based two-piece Baby Cages. Director Heather Rappard is the mastermind behind previous stunners like Broken Deer’s “My Heart’s in the Highlands” and brings an even more ominous feel to her latest effort. Like a goth reworking of The Royal Tenenbaums, the duo is inserted into meticulously staged set-ups of mannequins, costumes and one well-placed hand.

 

Fin – “Anin”

Sticking with the freaky deeky theme, this (totally NSFW) video by Toronto’s Rebecca Fin is a guaranteed goosebump-inducer. With the help of dance duo FlucT, she captures all kinds of bad behaviour (climbing fences, wrestling with a pitbull, yecchy puking from mouth to mouth) with the thermal imaging footage of a FLIR surveillance camera.

 

Oneohtrix Point Never – “Boring Angel”

Electronic shapeshifter Oneohtrix Point Never can already lay claim to one of the year’s most affecting (absolutely, 100% NSFW) videos, and has followed it up with something that may hit even closer to home. In collaboration with visual artist John Michael Boling, this brilliant clip for “Boring Angel” brings out some seriously intense feelings from a flurry of emojis.

 

Arthur Russell – “That’s Us/Wild Combination” x The Muppet Movie

I’ll end off this week with one more from John Michael Boling that won’t get you in trouble, and will probably leave you with a case of the warm fuzzies. The concept is simple: One of the best songs of all time and the namesake of the Arthur Russell documentary combined with footage from The Muppet Movie. Flip this on and everything seems right with the world.