Video: The Polyphonic Spree: "Running Away"
Plenty of videos have toyed with choppy, time-lapse effects lately, or else we need new computers. None have done so quite as ambitiously as Hal Samples' clip for "Running Away", from the much-delayed new album by Dallas psych-pop cloister the Polyphonic Spree, The Fragile Army. The video announces its intentions straightaway: "What would happen if... someone shot over 70,000 still photographs and made them into a music video?"
Backed by the maximalist, multi-instrumental cheers of Tim DeLaughter and his black-parading backers, the video shows the band traveling, marching outside, and performing beneath a banner bringing us "HOPE". Yup, all through still photographs, with flute and harp shots even lined up for those instruments' respective moments. "It's like flying," DeLaughter intones; his arms wave. Near the end, the video returns us to the Spree we've known since the beginning, jubilant in brightly colored robes. This is what happens, and it befits the Spree spectacle.
Video: The Polyphonic Spree: "Running Away"
[from The Fragile Army; due 6/19/07 on TVT]