Sentimental Candies

Miho Hatori “Ecdysis” – Video treatment: At the start of the clip, Miho Hatori buries a bag of candies, but when they are put in the soil, a colorful stalk pops up from the ground. As the churning bassline enters the mix, the radiant, pastel-hued stalk grows higher and higher. At first, she goes about her business, but is distracted by its presence — she can see it everywhere she goes in her town. She decides to climb it, and as she does, she sees her home eventually disappear beneath her as she scales up the stalk and into the stratosphere. We see beautiful and strange things in the clouds, and eventually she leaves the earth behind, and travels through the cosmos on the stalk, science be damned! Right around the 3:34 mark, she reaches her final destination, a glorious city that appears to be entirely composed of an organic chitinous substance on a planet with a brilliant lavendar sky. (Click here to buy it on import from Amazon.)

NEU! “Für Immer” – NEU!’s “motorik” songs capture in song the feeling of passing through time and space, and hurtling at great speed toward an endless horizon. It is some of the most optimistic and peaceful music that I have ever heard; conveying this total absence of fear in what lies ahead, and this silent convinction that the future is a beautiful place. “Für Immer” ends at a point that sounds a little like bliss and a lot like oblivion, but the truly ecstatic part of the composition is the sensation of accrued velocity on the way to that destination. (Click here to buy it from Insound.)

Elsewhere: The Anchor Center presents a clever, thoughtful review of Au Revoir Simone‘s “Through The Backyards” in video form.