Birmingham noise-punk trio YOUTH MAN are pleased to reveal the new animated video for ‘Look/Wait’, the latest track to be taken from their critically acclaimed EP Wax, out now on Venn Records. The trio will be appearing at Afropunk London and Underground Festival in Gloucester this coming weekend, with further lives dates to be revealed.
The video sees the three-piece faithfully rendered in plasticine in a creative tip-of-the-hat to the artwork for the Wax EP, a gruesome sculpture specially commissioned and created by drummer and artist Marcus Perks.
Vocalist and guitarist Kaila Whyte explains the inspiration behind the track:“This song came together in like a minute. It’s based on a dream I had where an extra-terrestrial kidnapping took place. We wanted it to sound like standing in a wind tunnel feels.”
After a typically raucous live intro the band are abducted by aliens and surgically re-arranged, as another trademark booster-shot of thrashed-up punk rock slams past just shy of the 1:30 mark – it’s a short, sharp and intense reminder of why their latest EP has been hailed as one of the most important UK punk releases of 2016 by those in the know.
Directed, animated and filmed by local artist Oliver Jones who has worked on several previous hand-drawn animated videos, the world of Claymation seemed an obvious choice to match with Youth Man’s wild and weird side.
“We had been flirting with doing a video together for a while” he explains “and when I had the idea to do a Claymation video I contacted the band they loved the idea. Not only is it a great song, it’s also the perfect length for a Claymation video as it’s notorious for being a somewhat slow process. The idea itself came from Kaila’s dream which inspired the song. With that in mind, I drew up some designs and came up with a simple concept. What you see in the video hasn’t really changed since its initial inception.”
From those first conversations it took 8 painstaking months to actually start production on the video, during which time Jones filmed the band in February 2016 performing the song live, then edited together a very crude version with a mixture of storyboards to help with the timing.
“It’s possibly the most complex video I have made to date” he continues “from start to finish the video productions itself took around a month. Everything you see in the video was built from scratch: the puppets, the sets, the guitars, the drums, the UFO and even a recreation of Muthers, the band’s rehearsal space. The biggest challenge was probably just trying to stop the puppets from falling over, once that happens your shot is ruined and you have to start again – which may have happened on several occasions.”
YOUTH MAN also recently headlined the Roundhouse Punk Weekender celebrating the 40th anniversary of the punk movement, described as “a chaotic, shrieking, wrecking-ball of a live show…one of the most exciting new bands in the country.”
September 24th – Afropunk London – Alexandra Palace – London
September 25th – Underground Fest – Gloucester
More about the band:
Having recently completed tours with German punks Adam Angst and KMPFSPRT, Brighton comrades Tigercub and Cardiff hand grenades Astroid Boys, the band have also previously appeared at the likes of Montreux Jazz Festival, Reading and Leeds Festivals, Wickerman, Hevy and more.
Their dedication to presenting an honest and undiluted version of their music has led to them charming critics and audiences alike, with the new EP stacking up critical praise from Rolling Stone, Alternative Press, BBC Radio One, NME, Clash Magazine, Artrocker, Drowned In Sound, Rock Sound, DIY and many more.
Commenting on the unorthodox recording sessions that lead to the completion of the new record, the band explain in more detail: “With ‘Wax’ we wanted to make a record that properly captured our live sound. We wrote the tracks in between tours last year and playing them live felt good for us, so we extended that vibe to the studio and recorded the EP through the night in one live session. They’re night time songs. We wrote them at night and play them at night and you can hear that on the songs.”
