Welcome to FACT’s weekly video round-up.
As we note at the end of every year, music videos have never been better. But too often, music videos — along with documentaries, live sets and interview clips — get lost in the shuffle of news and new music.
With that in mind, FACT is doing what it does for mixes, mixtapes, vinyl and more: rounding up the internet’s best videos on a weekly basis. And to remove our bias, we won’t be including our own content — you’ll have to stay tuned to FACT TV for all your Against The Clock, FACT Freestyles and Confessions needs.
Read more: The 20 best music videos of 2015
Radiohead
‘Burn The Witch’
Dir: Chris Hopewell
It’s The Wicker Man meets Trumpton in a subversive stop-motion video that serves as a cautionary tale about Islamophobia. The visiting officer comes across pagan trappings – steer-masked sacrificers, bloody meals and gallows at the ready – that are somehow made more horrible in clay. The tension rises as the clip builds to its inevitable conclusion… albeit with a epilogue that leaves more questions than answers.
Lil Yachty
‘1 NIGHT’
Dir: Glassface & Rahil Ashruff
One click of the screen is all it takes to enter Lil Yachty’s aquatic world, a neon slurry of Internet Era art, graphics and memes where more is never enough. There’s a Lil Boat trip, emoji-assisted karaoke, Hey Arnold, green screens… what else did you expect?
Adult Jazz
‘Earrings Off!’
Dir: Sam Travis
Five nude, golden statues bring ‘Earrings Off!’ to life, singing, dancing and posing in a hypnotic video loaded with uncanny valley eeriness.
Anderson .Paak feat. BJ the Chicago Kid
‘The Season/Carry Me/The Waters’
Dir: Anderson .Paak & Chris Le
Cali upstart Anderson .Paak pulls back the curtain and presents a three-act play where 3D meets 2D. In the self-directed clip, the soul music multi-hyphenate battles a Trump trash monster, goes to therapy, gets baptized and performs under the sea.
DJ Shadow
‘The Mountain Will Fall’
Dir: Marti Romances
Everyone is doing space travel videos these days, but perhaps none have deserved the treatment as much as DJ Shadow’s cinematic ‘The Mountain Will Fall’: an untethered astronaut explores a mysterious planet, blasts through hyperspace and finds himself in the stars.
Skepta
‘Man’
Dir: Skepta
Skepta delivers a lo-fi, VHS-effected video for fiery Konnichiwa cut ‘Man’, partying with Boy Better Know in a grungy club, avoiding police and causing mayhem.
French Montana feat. Kanye West & Nas
‘Figure It Out’
Dir: Eif Rivera
Two rap heavyweights and French Montana suffer from success in an airplane graveyard while BMX bikers do death-defying stunts. The only thing that separates this from most rap videos is the budget.
River Tiber feat. Daniel Caesar
‘West’
Dir: Keavan Yazdani and River Tiber
River Tiber and Daniel Caesar illustrate their “On the road / Nowhere to go” lyrics with a lo-fi tour video collage that captures the song’s homesickness.
Janet Jackson
‘Dammn Baby’
Unbreakable might prove forgettable, but leave it to Janet to stun with a black-and-white dance video, even as she hits 50.
AraabMuzik feat. Raiche
‘Chasing Pirates’
AraabMuzik flashes some jewels and shows off his MPC skills as Raiche looks lovelorn in a house of mysteries where metaphors tend to be a little heavy-handed.