Agony & Ecstasy: K-Pop's bad-ass female goes solo, Chvrches and last week's fests
CL – ‘The Baddest Female’
2NE1's K-Pop queen CL continues to make every Western pop star look unimaginative and bored in the captivating video for her debut solo single ‘The Baddest Female’. The looks are in a whole other league: she wears Nasir Mazhar-branded bra and boxers, chills on the street under trainers hanging from a telephone cable, and winsomely licks a lollipop on a swing constructed from her own initials. The song is a bit all over the place, but the visuals more than make up for it. Read our interview with CL from earlier this year here.
VIDEO OF THE WEEK: Micro Panda Shall Burst – ‘Rew Antigram’
A blissy treat from warm electronic outfit Micro Panda Shall Burst (made up of My Panda Shall Fly and Microburst), with an abstract interactive video that’s a little like The xx’s oily animated videos meets a Windows 95 screensaver. Premiered on Dazed exclusively today, you can move the cursor to either whoosh through the landscape or take it at a snail’s pace – both work with the ever-morphing, airy beat.
SONG OF THE WEEK: Glass Candy – ‘Beautiful Object’
As they continue on their European tour with Chromatics (they stop in London's KoKo on June 12), Glass Candy just premiered the gorgeous video for ‘Beautiful Object’, a grainy clip directed by Martin D’Argensio showing Ida No and Johnny Jewel in the studio. It’s one of their four tracks on the recently-released Italians Do It Better compilation After Dark 2, a, outstanding, mixed-message-heavy track about “love’s golden ocean”. All a bit Dorian Gray down the disco.
Thanks for restoring our faith in festivals, Primavera and Field Day. The rain held off, we got hyphey and danced until the sun went down (or in Primavera’s case, came up). At Primavera, Hot Chip were surprisingly great – taut and engaging – Daughn Gibson growled his beats-driven blues, and Deerhunter snarled their way though a thrilling, seemingly-endless ‘Desire Lines’. At Field Day, meanwhile, we loved Jacques Greene, How To Dress Well and the innovative techno of Karenn who closed the BleeD/Lanzarote stage with a thrilling set.
AND ANOTHER THING... Chvrches – ‘Gun’
Probably the poppiest effort to date from Glasgow’s Chvrches (still not sure about that ‘v’), the three-piece’s new single veers ever closer to the moment in a John Hughes film where they ditch the prom to run down the school steps in slow motion. It comes out on July 15 on pink vinyl. Pink vinyl!