Must-Watch Music Videos: Bonobo Has Post-War America On Repeat

[Editor’s Note: Two major trends have emerged in the recent history of new media: 1) Music videos are the new music and 2) YouTube is the new MTV. With that in mind and to keep you up to speed with the greatest and latest in this online video category, Tubefilter has partnered with INDMUSIC, YouTube’s largest independent music network, to bring you at least one must-watch music video every week. Turn up your volume and we hope you enjoy the analysis, sites, and sounds. For more Must-Watch Music Video installments, click here.]

Remember the good old days? The post-war suburban sprawl that moved families out of the cities and into planned communities and big houses with swimming pools and parks and little kids running and bouncing on trampolines? I’m a few generations away from Baby Boomer status, so I can’t say I recall post-WWII America all too well, but that doesn’t mean I can’t relate to the found late-1940’s and early-1950’s footage in Bonobo‘s music video for Cirrus.

The looped Emergency Broadcast Networked images of mundane life depict the technicolored modernity of the economic boom, splayed across and contrasted by the chimes and rhythms of Bonobo’s track. You feel the music is both in front of and behind you as the video repeats, splices, and repeats, on and on.

The song is as unpredictable as the moving pictures, too. And that’s exactly what will keep you stuck looping in that moment, with the kids on the slide, the moms headed out the door to run errands, and the dads in the driveway going off to work.  Then, it all comes together in a kaleidoscoped collage of faces, people, landscapes, unearthly entities made up of earthly beings, and beats.

It’s people as gears in a machine, spinning and rotating to the backdrop of what once was the modern life. Then, it all just disappears. But fret not, for you if you like what you hear and see you can find Bonobo tour dates here and art tracks for his latest LP The North Borders right here.

Arshan Sadri is the Channel Manager at Brooklyn based, INDMUSIC, YouTube’s largest music Network. He got his start booking comedy and music at the University of Maryland. On weekends he refuses to travel above 14th street, likes to run, and plays in two bands that are just ok.

INDMUSIC is YouTube’s Largest Music Network, allowing independent music content creators to monetize their YouTube views without sacrificing creative control or rights to their content.