Out of our minds…
Yes, you’re listening,
you’re a dreamer,
so come in…
OK…so who would have thought that the first official review post on Ugly Chord would be about a music video? Not I…but I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to talk about Melissa auf der Maur’s music video premier of her new single, “Out of Our Minds.” And it somehow seems appropriate.
In case you don’t know who Melissa auf der Maur is, you may remember her as the bassist from Hole and then from the Smashing Pumpkins, and eventually her own solo stuff (in between, of course, she played in a Black Sabbath cover band called Hand of Doom). Her first solo release, Auf der Maur (2004) was a fantastic release (featuring a who’s who of cool music like Josh Homme, Mark Lanegan, James Iha, Brant Bjork, Nick Oliveri, etc.) I have eagerly been anticipating her next release and it looks like my anticipation will soon come to an end.
What’s neat about her latest project, OOOM, “Out of our Minds” is that it is a sonic and visual experience. After completing the album, she decided it would be accompanied by both a comic book and a film. The film, OOOM, Out of Our Minds (directed by Tony Stone) has already been accepted at Sundance and is garnering great reviews. You can see a trailer for it here.
To return, however, to the subject of this post, it is the premier of a video for the title track off the upcoming album, “Out of Our Minds.” The video is also directed by Tony Stone and is quite good–seemingly featuring most of the set from the movie. The visuals are crisp, shot very well, and full of fantastic imagery. With that said, however, I want to talk about the music–because Melissa has managed to do something very interesting here: she has managed to mix lounge sounding vocals (in parts) with fast paced rock (à la, e.g., Queens of the Stone Age) to a really stunning effect. This melding of time periods also, of course, perfectly compliments the video, in which we find Melissa wandering through past and present. The production on the track is absolutely top notch (no less would be expected from a legend like Chris Goss) and I am eagerly awaiting the release of the whole album.
Travel out of our minds,
and into our hearts,
standing by,
our hearts have been standing by so long…
Here’s the video:
