Pitchfork

Playing up the A.D.H.D. nature of their latest LP, Wild Mountain Nation, the video for "Woof & Warp of the Quiet Giant's Hem" makes an already loopy track all the more disorienting. Flashing lights abound, clown faces shot through fisheye lenses threaten, and close-up screenshots of classic arcade games are presented so quickly you can barely discern Q*bert before another zooms past. Some of these images are superimposed on footage of the band playing in the middle of the machines, but most are thrown at the viewer without any sort of context. On record, I found this giddy, molar-grinding detour supremely necessary and part of the album's charming sprawl, though a colleague opined that it made him "throw up in [his] mouth a little." I might have to cede to him here. I appreciate the low-tech amateur spirit of it, but it's pretty nauseating overall. Keep away from children and epileptics.

The "Sci-Fi Kid Remix" is more palatable, though not exactly essential. The kinetic strum of the original gets clipped to a few chattering suggestions of chords and elastic, staccato bursts of synthesizers grind against harsh digital pops and pinched robot vocals. It's a fun indulgence, and its final release hits something dancefloor appropriate. But while the remix reinforces the band's audacious diversity, Blitzen Trapper's human-mixtape novelty isn't where their appeal starts and ends. Look for these textures to be folded into a few brief seconds of some future track.