Video Premiere: John Vanderslice: "Time to Go"
The new video for "Time to Go", from John Vanderslice's forthcoming sixth solo album Emerald City, is as densely unpatronizing as the former mk Ultra frontman's rich lyrical narratives. In the clip, directed by Brent Chesanek, brisk guitar strums crackle with organic-sounding distortion as a cryptic scene unfolds in what could be the same timeless wood as the one that hosts a bizarre duel in Grizzly Bear's new "Central and Remote" video.
This time, the leaves have fallen. A boy in warpaint climbs tree limbs around an older, hat-wearing man with colored parcels strung from the higher branches and an array of gadgets on his odd, outdoor desk. Vanderslice sings of pushing the horses hard, then eventually selling them. When a bandaged hand-- the boy's?-- casts a Granny Smith into this highly charged atmosphere, the effect is like an explosion. "We'll never make it back," Vanderslice murmurs, and it really is time to go, time to go. How about them apples?
[from Emerald City; due 07/24/07 on Barsuk]