MV Monday: Future Orients, Cloud Choir, Miserable Faith

Digital puppetry set to the end of days, somber impassioned rallies for change set to the end of days, and science fiction and history set to the end of days – it’s not all grimace this week, but there certainly is a theme through the fun and chaos invoked in each of these fresh new music videos, courtesy of seminal Beijing yaogun rockers Miserable Faith, new Beijing indie rock kids on the block Future Orients, and a reunited Beijing experimental drone duo Cloud Choir. The end is nigh so let’s grab some popcorn.

Beijing based indie rock outfit Future Orients, the latest band to join local label Maybe Mars, bring their kinetic sound and erratic melodies to the digital world in the music video for their first single ‘Running’. Using a running (of course) digital puppet as a focal point, the video is a cleverly timed motion college of psychedelic images and Windows clip art that feels at like modern take on our technological trappings. Whatever the intent, it’s a fun Technicolor splash. Check out the just released debut, Eat Or Die, from Future Orients over on bandcamp and keep an eye out for their tour dates across China.

One of the most influential and longstanding rock bands in China, Miserable Faith, continue subverting their originally metal-tinged sound with something more folk-oriented. The band, a regular festival closer (I caught them to manic in love crowd at MIDI last year), is slowly releasing new music, including this rock-steady impassioned single ‘Fragmented’ which juxtaposes images of singer Gao Hu in an abandoned rumble-filled warehouse with the all too familiar video feed of the chaos violent-filled world that is civilization at this point. Broken ingeniously into thirds, which gives the video an offbeat dystopian filter, the video surprisingly has quite the impact. Kudos to director Zuxin Hou, daughter of famous first generation rocker Muren Hou.

Earlier this summer, experimental/drone duo Cloud Choir, the duo, made up of Michael Cupoli (Noise Arcade) and Richard Doran (Low Bow), were able to reunite after two years of suffering apart from one another. Tears were not shed, but instead an album was born – Disappointing Results ­– as well as two new music videos patched together like a surly mad scientist by Mr. Doran himself set to their live set – Casual Loop in July. A mash up of ‘space fiction, the boxer revolution, and recent footage’ of the duo’s heartfelt whiskey-enabled reunion, it\’s a twilight zone refitted with drones and other electronic noodling. And word on the street is, the duo had so much fun this summer, they’re looking to share bodily fluids all over again in November.