(Photo credit: Raymond Flotat)
A few weeks after their performance at Austin’s South by Southwest (SXSW) festival, Hot Chip have released new music video for their song, “Need You Now”. This song will appear on the band’s sixth full-length album, Why Make Sense?, that is to be released on May 19th, 2015, via Domino Records.
The video for “Need You Now” was directed by Shynola, who has also worked with Radiohead, Blur, and Beck. And, it opens with an outdoor shot that depicts a woman with auburn hair loading boxes into a van that is parked in front of a red brick house, as a short haired man in a blue sweater looks on. Then, he turns and walks slowly back into the house, hangs up his jacket, and finds his attention caught by a music video on his television.
Next, the camera cuts away to the man finishing a meal, and then he is shown taking a nap. Meanwhile, there’s a jump cut to an outdoor shot of someone else in a burnt orange jacket raiding the glove box of a parked gray car. The man in the blue sweater awakens and goes to the floor to ceiling glass window to discover that it’s his car that is being raided. He grabs a blue jacket and runs outside, scaring the perpetrator, who takes off on foot with the man in blue giving chase.
Despite the perpetrator in orange getting away, the man in the blue jacket does recover a photo that the perpetrator dropped, and he (the man in blue) goes to a café to warm up and examine the photograph.
In a strange twist, the man in blue sees his doppelganger in the café, and the doppelganger throws a coffee at the original man in blue, who then runs out the door in a panic. Then, there’s a jump cut to the man in blue standing in the middle of a foggy roadway and slowly disappearing into thin air, before the camera cuts again to the man returning home and re-entering his house.
As the music video develops, one begins to notice that the video has elements of the film “Groundhog Day”, as certain segments of the man in blue’s day are repeated. However, the repetitive segments feature the man and his doppelganger – or, perhaps, himself in a “world that’s just gone wrong” – repeating the actions from the car robbery and chase. Both blue jacketed men are shown in these scenes.
In the end, there is a bit of a plot twist featuring the woman, who was shown at the beginning of the music video loading the van, and one of the men. But, you’ll just have to check out the official music video for “Need You Now”, below, to find out what happens.
Where did the video’s concept originate?
“We share a lot of the same references and attitudes – there’s a definite aesthetic affinity,” Shynola said of Hot Chip in a press release. “The idea for the video wholly came from our reaction to the song.”
And, Shynola described what it was like on set during the filming, saying, “What was intended to be a piece of thrifty filmmaking ended up being a mind-melting shoot – if you can imagine shooting multiple versions of reality, but completely out of chronology, plus in the pissing rain and wind.”
Why Make Sense? will be available in digital, vinyl, and cd formats. There is also a special edition of the album that is available for a limited time only, which features a bonus Separate EP of four songs that were recorded during the sessions for Why Make Sense?. And, due to a unique printing technique, each physical copy of the album will have different colored cover with artwork designed by Nick Relph. Currently, the album is available for pre-order on iTunes and Dom Mart, and the pre-orders come with instant downloads of “Huarache Lights” and “Need You Now”.
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