Whitesand/Badlands video debuts on YouTube

Whitesand/Badlands at Stasiu's, photographed by massdistraction.

There's more than a few musical influences making spectral cameos in Whitesand/Badlands' first music video for "Brandspeakeasy," but nothing that lingers long enough for the paparazzi to get a juicy head shot. If you hear moments of Slint, whispers of post OK Computer Radiohead, it's only in passing, and serves to be just touchstones from which to puddle jump your way through the band's videographical debut.



The video is a demonstration of the DIY aesthetics that seem to be infiltrating almost every corner of the local music community. A single digital camera lingers on laval lamps and stained glass, on studio set-ups and live-performance. There's not much interaction betwen the sights and the sounds, and only a small amount of editing dazzle when the song hits a middle-innings tempo bump (it's an excellent flourish-- the spasmodics of the lava lamp blobs adds to the song's hypnosis).

But it's contemplative and meandering, much like the music that scores it. It's a work of spontaneous simplicity, even while the song slithers through five plus minutes of ghostly guitar and vocal interplay that entwine one another like skeins through a loom.

Interested in seeing them around? You'll have to do it the old fashioned way, which means keeping your eyes peeled on the bulletin boards of your favorite cafes and record stores-- Whitesand/Badlands have no website or Myspace page.

Don't have the time? Don't worry gang-- we'll be up in the crow's nest with the telescope. This band deserves your rapt attention.