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This is what we live for in the Audio Visuals roundup, people! The videos below will make you laugh, make you smile, make you nostalgic, and perhaps even make you shed a single tear, depending on the day. We continue to be amazed every week at the musical treasures being dropped into the Internet without fanfare, and there were so many standouts to choose from this week, we couldn't even fit all the ones we wanted to. So once you've gone through the main list, do get down with the partying decapitated heads in Steve Aoki and Afrojack's video for "Afroki." Then, if you're just in the mood to see some beautiful people in a beautiful place being shot with some beautiful photography, skip on over to "Do What You Like" by Taio Cruz. And for a final, touching exercise, Aquilo's "Calling Me" is the heart-squeezing tale of an outcast boy who expresses himself most completely through dance. For your consideration, here are our favorite clips of the week.
According to the description of this video, 240 audio cassettes, 5,600 feet of video tape, 108 floppy disks, and one Sony Walkman were used to bring the visuals to life, and it's a whole lot of multicolored fun. The direction and animation were both done by Dropbear, otherwise known as Jonathan Chong, and if you dig "Quack Fat," we highly recommend the beautiful work he did on John Butler Trio's video for "Spring to Come."
There's something so strange and charming about this video we just had to give it a shout-out. It's like watching two ghosts in a machine stay connected to each other, two little digital silhouettes finding their way through the dark.
So at first we were a little not sold on this entry from SonReal, but then it picked up steam and didn't look back. We just love a good exploding-people effect here at the roundup.
Can the next Pixar movie please be about the secret lives of little crosswalk signal people??
Here's a first for Audio Visuals! Tame Impala makes the cut two weeks in a row for the same song. Shrewd move, Tame Impala. How did you know we love puppets?
Here's a tone shift for you all. No glossy effects. No sweeping landscape shots. No poignant narrative arc. Just a group of friends standing in a circle clapping and singing together. This is the official video for "Transparent Times," so it fits our agenda here, and it's a nice little change-up from what bands typically deliver for their official clips. Soak up the sweet, simple beauty of Sonnymoon and friends.
Alessia Cara has taken her social anxiety anthem and matched it with an utterly perfect visual. For anyone who's ever just wanted leave the party, and didn't want to go in the first place, "Here" will remind you of every night you asked your friends if you could stay in and listen to music instead.
"Arms Around Me" really undersells what the two stars of this video, Jabu and JR, are capable of doing with their arms, legs, torsos, and any other parts of their bodies with joints. This is some next-level flirting.
A song called "Bros" about a couple of tween tomboy BFFs just running around and loving life. This video is just impossibly sweet.
Yes, the scorched remains of an Earth destroyed by humanity is a super downer, but these are some stunning visuals. Consider us powerless before well-executed renderings of space travel.
