About a month or so ago, an email came in to the imaginary inbox with a link to Pickwick's latest video effort, an outstanding feat of mini-moviemaking for one of the best tracks on Can't Talk Medicine, "Lady Luck". (In the event you missed earlier praise, it's a Richard Swift cover featuring Sharon Van Etten that slays with sultry, buttery vocals; more here.) The band has a habit of working with killer directors, so it's no surprise that the visual presentation of the song is seamless: the framing is gorgeous, the cues are on point, and the whole thing is just teeming with that rare blend understated powerfulness. And really, did anyone expect that a bunch of straight beardy dudes would do such an excellent job portraying a day in the life of a crossdresser? Welp, not only did these dudes do it, they did it really, really well.
It's an incredibly concise, fly-on-the-wall visual of our friend's process: out with old, in with the new; with subtle cues from the lyrics (I look around and I don't feel like myself ; it's just the beginning, though the end is near) layered in with first-take bad-assery to really knock the finished product out of the park. It's daring and brilliant, and executed near-perfectly. Bravah, Heathers! {buy the album / get tour dates}
The other homerun that hit our queue at about the same time as the Pickwick video was the title single off of Sean Nelson's upcoming release, Make Good Choices. It's an incredibly catchy rendering of a specific relationship lifecycle, a timeline of pain and clarity stitched together with some of the most concise post-'Fuck off, ex!' storytelling ever. The whole song is excellent, but the last ~45 seconds or so showcase both Sean's lung capacity and his unfuckwithable verbal precision, leaving the listener (or this listener, at least) a bit transfixed. It's the perfect power-anthem punctuation on a breakup mix that's so good you wind up keeping it for yourself, and the video is no slouch either: the song's sharp edges are accentuated sweetly by a Clyde Peterson-animated video, starring Paper Cutout Sean and now-wife Shenandoah (Davis) Nelson. {pre-order the album / more info}
Happy Monday!