Pitchfork

Mother Nature must be a space invader, too. UK male/female duo Prinzhorn Dance School's self-titled DFA debut has the stark, mechanical rhythms of the post-industrialized world, and their previous videos have played that out. One attaches the band's spare right angles to cooking, and another to working with home-improvement tools. Their latest video, for "You Are the Space Invader", finds such herky-jerk bleakness in the natural world, too.

The clip's stuttering stop-motion approach is neatly suited for the track's sharp, unfilled outlines. Paper cutouts of baby birds mew for food in their nest, while little round bulbs sprout on the tree. Prinzhorn's Tobin Prinz and Suzi Horn appear as winged insects, with Prinz in Klaxons-esque compound-eye makeup and Horn starting out in a chrysalis. They rain down condescension both vague ("Are you hiding from your past life?") and specific ("White bread gives you cancer"). As Prinz cries out, "Invader!", and the guitars contort upon themselves, the mother bird takes a bite from one of the round tree-hangy things to feed her nestlings. For this otherwise-familiar nature scene to get any more strangely uncomfortable, one of the humans would have to start regurgitating insect guts. The video is also available at the band's MySpace page.

["You Are the Space Invader" digital single due 10/23/07 and Prinzhorn Dance School out now; both on DFA/Astralwerks]