Dancing in a blossomed garden, intense melancholy, and more feature in this week’s roundup

What with new Radiohead, Skepta, Kaytranada, Death Grips, ANOHNI and more great stuff touching down in the past week, it’s possible you didn’t catch what’s been hitting YouTube. That’s where we step in. Get your eyes around these carefully picked out chunks of quality visual content right here, right now.

Grimes - California

Grimes’ much-lauded album of late last year, Art Angels, kicked off with this banger, but for the video version, the art pop auteur has taken the pumping production down a notch. Taking on a variety of characters (including shy but glittery country singer, dancing pottery worker, and ribbon dancer trapped in a colour-block basketball court) Grimes sings over a decidedly more dreamy take on the popular LP cut. Grimes has come in for a lot of criticism for ‘selling out’ by taking on a power pop sound after Art Angels was released, so are these seemingly disparate identities on show in this video two fingers up to the haters? I’d like to think so.

Radiohead - Daydreaming

Directed by P.T. Anderson

One of the foremost directors of the past three decades, Paul Thomas Anderson, gives one of the most influential bands of the past three decades, Radiohead, visuals through which to siphon what feels like a lifetime of melancholy. Following frontman Thom Yorke as he dodges and stumbles through doors into all sorts of landscapes, the majestic flow of shots masterfully mirroring the wall of piano-led heartbreak the band pour into your ears.

Ought - Beautiful Blue Sky

Directed by Bobby McHugh

Another song from last year that’s been blessed with a video this week is Ought’s Beautiful Blue Sky. As the first peek into their sophomore album of 2015, it felt electrically introspective, channeling a repetitive stream of consciousness that concentrated on the mundanity of small talk over a repeated guitar phrase. Now, a subject onto which this narrative has been projected has been added via the visuals. Dancer Matt Drews is trapped at home, in his stairwell, and in the street – only when reaching a gorgeous garden does he seem anything like free.

Kamaiyah - For My Dawg

Directed by Evan Croker

Kamiyah pays tribute to her friend and cancer victim James in the video for this track from her recent mixtape, A Good Night in the Ghetto. “Why is it that my best friend has his cancer? And everything around me doesn’t matter?” she asks, touching on her problems with alcohol in the wake of his death against a backdrop of home footage of her much-missed former hypeman. Kamaiyah arrives at the other side devastated, but strong.

Martha - Goldman’s Detective Agency

Directed by Nathan Stephens Griffin

On a distinctly sillier note, DIY punks Martha mess around in some of the most offensive threads around in the video for Goldman’s Detective Agency, taken from their forthcoming album Blisters In The Pit Of My Heart. Watch as the band’s Naomi tries to crack a kidnapping case, and ends up accidentally cracking something else instead.

Weaves - One More

Directed by Morgan Waters

Toronto’s Weaves bash together garage rock with unrelentingly catchy pop tunes to create a raucous whirl of guitar goodness, and the video for One More, taken from their forthcoming self-titled LP reflects their colourful, no-fucks-given approach to indie pop. Singer Jasmyn Burke chases down the band as they whizz through the New Mexico desert, and takes time out to shake some pompoms around. It’s also directed by another member of the band, Morgan Waters. DIY or die.

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