Video Time: Jealous Creatures + Glass the Sky + The Tontons + The Manichean

For some reason, there’s been a great, cool little crop of videos popping up lately from some awesomely talented Houston bands; I’ve been enjoying the hell out of ’em, so I figured it’d be a good time to do a little rundown of the stuff I’ve seen recently. Here we go:

Jealous Creatures, “Just a Memory”

This first one wins on multiple counts — first of all, it’s my absolute-favorite {Jealous Creatures} song, the rough-edged, hazily majestic Out West road song “Just a Memory,” but it also happens to be entertainingly whimsical and strange. There’s the adorable moppet on a quest, the furry-headed, Where the Wild Things Are-on-a-budget “Creature” (which I’m fairly sure is band member Ian Hlavacek), and the members of fellow quirky indie-pop band {A Sundae Drive} as a gang of sinister, ape-faced card players lurking around the frame of an unfinished house.

What does it all mean? Not a clue, but hey, maybe the journey’s the point of things, not the destination, anyway. And yes, I have to admit, the ape guys kinda freak me out, at least ’til they pull off their masks…

Glass the Sky, “Koi Pawned”

I’ve gotta say, this one charmed the hell out of me, far more than I’d expected it to. {Glass the Sky}‘s “Koi Pawned” is a damn fine song to begin with, stately but jaunty and warm at the same time, but beyond that, the dancing-shoes thing is clever as hell, using an insanely minimal setup to illustrate the actual sound.

Plus, the handclaps and silhouetted faces make me think fondly of videos from the ’80s, back when people were just starting to play with what they could and couldn’t do in a music video. High-five, y’all; I’m won over.

The Tontons, “Golden”

This one’s actually been sitting in my Inbox for a little while now, since the band released it back in September, and I’ve kept meaning to talk about it but put it off & put it off & put it off & procrastinated. Stupidly, really, because I freaking love {The Tontons}, and “Golden” in particular.

Like the two videos above, too, this one’s smart and playful as hell, with the band seemingly always right on the verge of starting to play (and, presumably, film the quote-unquote “real” video for the song), all while the incomparable Asli Omar sings and snarls and struts in the foreground. Damn, I love this band. If they’re not famous as fuck soon, the world is officially stupid.

The Manichean, “Leopards”

And last but definitely not least, there’s the most recent of the bunch, {The Manichean}‘s brand-new video for new song “Leopards,” off forthcoming album LOVERS. Like I think I said recently, those Manichean guys (Justice Tirapelli-Jamail and Cory Sinclair, specifically) don’t do things halfway, and they certainly haven’t here, crafting a gorgeously-textured, stunning audio-visual poem that marries Sinclair’s words with Tirapelli-Jamail’s delicate, fluid guitar work and visuals that wouldn’t seem out-of-place in a Radiohead video.

I won’t claim to have any fucking idea what’s going on here, except that there’s lots of pointy objects, there’s running in the woods and mud and blood, and a cemetery, and a whole lot of somber, thoughtful, elegaic quiet. Wow.

That’s what I’ve got at the moment — more videos to come as I see and hear about ’em…