Best new indie rock songs, indie news, best bands, reviews
It’s down to the wire – the best 2020 indie music videos playlist series is wrapping up. The response was huge.
With that in mind enjoy the next batch below of 10 of the best 2020 indie music videos we saw and dig. Hope you do too.
This playlist features indie bands and artists like Second Hand Poet, Matt Jaffe; theWorst; The Mountain Chimes; Car Velos; In Between Years; Shojon; Learn To Fly; The Amber Bugs and Wasted History.
The following playlist of the best 2020 indie rock videos is the third volume of the series. See Best 2020 Indie Music Videos, Vol. I and Vol. II.
This video playlist, from our Indie Rock TV channel, represents an impressive collection of mostly DIY music videos from veteran and newer indie artists and bands.
We want to hear your thoughts. Please mention your favorite/favorites from this Volume III and tag us (@IndieRockCafe on Twitter; IndieRockCafeFB on Facebook and @indierockcafe on Instagram) when you do. The videos below are not in any particular order.
Start the video playlist
Note: IRC’s criteria for picking music videos is basically: they have to be 2020 (for a little longer) releases; they must be original music videos (no clip or cover art; public domain video shorts, etc.); they cannot be private, and the song itself must be meaningful, tasteful and all-around well produced.
As promised folks, here are more of the best 2020 indie music videos. Browse, watch and listen to indie videos part one here.
“Rollin Hills, Fertile Valley” – The Blue Hook
Below are some of the best 2020 DIY/indie music videos we’ve seen/heard this year. This is a first of a series that will include more selected videos – many sent into us.
Watch and listen to these selected music videos featuring a wide diversity of indie artists, bands, visuals, and songs.
Over the years, DIY and indie bands have been making better and better music videos.
Bonus: See the streaming playlist of accompanying audio-only tracks in the playlist below. Don’t miss other great music video playlists on IRC.
Indie musicians and bands featured below include:
Diamonds and Guns – Los Angeles California
Terrence and the High Flyers – Ottawa, Ontario
Alleys – Boise, Idaho
Hush!Noise – Fougères, France
Black Moon Book – Chicago, Illinois
The Honeycreepers – Niantic, Connecticut
This raging, gravely hard-hitter from Los Angeles’ Diamonds and Guns (cool name) made our night. We actually felt like we should be riding a rollercoaster, ear buds on, this song playing. Most metal/hard-rock is, frankly, no bueno. However, D&G is a rare exception. This is good rock! Not the formatted dribble that comes from radio and labels.
“This Could Be The One” is a fantastically upbeat and sunny song with an impossible-to-ignore hook and a lush, smooth tropical vibe. The Ottawa soft folk rock duo will attract some more followers today.
This colorful video combined with the groovy, upbeat bedroom synth-pop of Boise multi-instrumentalist Jacob Diaz, aka Alleys. “Rivers” incorporates guitar and drum loops, musical crescendos, deep groove, and emotive vocals. Alleys has opened for bands like Floating Points, Big Dipper, and Eldren while his biggest musical influences are Elliott Smith, Real Estate, and El ten Eleven.
A mystical, almost haunting sound with hushed vocals and a teddy as a central character. The Fougères, France band draws from post-rock, psychedelic, noise and ambient music.
Chicago musician Mark Lofgren, aka Black Moon Book, drew us in with the psychedelic color filters and the Mac-DeMarco-meets-Brit-pop with this bedroom pop number that he says”touches on memory, isolation and, most explicitly, the healing power of hope and love.”
Usually we wouldn’t place a Joni Mitchell-like, radio pop song (because it’s not really indie) but the video is cool, and having escaped California, it makes us long for the good ole golden sun-shiny, clear skies, normal temperatures and semi-affordable-rent years of our California past before things started to get really hairy. We wish our friends and old acquaintances – still there or not – all the best.
On Thursday morning, Gorillaz released the long-awaited Episode Two of Song Machine, Season One.
The new episode,’Désolé,’ features the esteemed vocalist and Grammy-nominated artist Fatoumata Diawara.
Désolé, which is French for ‘sorry’, is an uplifting electro-pop love song in English, French, and Bambara.
Within the first 20 minutes of its release, the new episode racked up over 100,000 views. It’ll likely be in the millions by next week.
https://gorill.az/songmachine – Follow Gorillaz’ Song Machine
Credits:
Director: Jamie Hewlett
Co-Directors: Tim McCourt, Max Taylor
Producer: Eva Dahlqvist
Animators: Venla Linna, Simone Crillo, Setareh Seto, Diego Porral
Clean Up Artists: Setareh Seto, Diego Porral, Venla Linna
Compositor: Freddie Lewis-Wall
“I love the idea of this video having a dark, gloomy look with people wearing masks,” says Michael Jack Dole the artist behind the EoG moniker. “I didn’t want any faces shown at all.”
“Instead, I wanted images of churches and any religion tied into it as it depicts a person struggling to see any meaning in life – as if all we are is dust and bones,” Dole says.
“I wanted to incorporate ‘creepy’ worldly themes,” he insists.
The single embodies everything Empire of Gold has built his reputation on – grunge. He delivers a heavy performance while staying true to the dynamic range and minimalism that is missing in today’s rock.
The verses have a quiet, rumbling signature sound that builds to a powerful chorus. There’s no need for a wall of guitars as Dole puts it.
“The ability to subtlety bring the song to a deep moving riff right after the chorus is everything we all crave in this heavily over-produced era of rock,” he adds.
The album, The Devil Is In The Details, was recorded in Dole’s home studio. His musical project, he says, is “a concept playing with the thoughts, theories and fears of human mortality. It plays back and forth with theology and atheist views about our dreams, hopes and eventual reincarnation into heaven.”
The L.P. is an impressive foray into the sonic depths of grunge, alt. rock and punk elements, centering on depressing lyrics, but with an ultimate message of hope.
Dole uses Logic Pro X and a lunchbox of pre-amps. Mixing was taken on by Portland engineer Kevin Carafa and later sent to Dirk Steyer of ACSY Sound in Germany for mastering.
His musical influences include Nirvana, Slipnot, Highly Suspect and Green Day.
Dole recently was accepted to the prestigious Berklee School of Music.
Here are some of the best DIY indie music videos that have been sent in during recent weeks from around the world. Support DIY and indie! As usual, a full audio playlist for non-stop streaming of the tracks themselves is featured at the end of the post.
Heavy Heart – London, England
The Gallery – Wakefield, England
Cameron Elise – San Marcos, Texas
Beke – Mexico City, Mexico
The OCN – Washington, D.C.
Dan Rose – Copenhagen, Denmark
Mystery Art Orchestra – Berlin, Germany
Black Palms Orchestra – Vienna, Austria
The new London band Heavy Heart has recently won praise from influential U.K. outlets, including The NME, BBC 6 and BBC Radio thanks to the emotional, dreamy single, “Bed Bug.”
The song was mixed and co-produced by Grammy-Award winning producer Gabe Wax (The War On Drugs, Soccer Mommy). There is a dark undertow to the song and video, with sorrow-filled melodies and slow beats.
The mysterious vocals of Anna Vincent together with other band members’ contributions – guitarists Patrick Fitzroy (guitar, backing vocals) and James Vincent, drummer Craig Brown, and bassist Max Bloom – complete the song and video.
A multi-lens analog video camera was employed by director David Zbirka to bring to visual life the song, using what Zbirka says was a “unique 3D effect” in the music video.
Bands Opened For: Another Sky, Big Spring, Desert Mountain Tribe, Zipper Club
Musical influences: Radiohead, Blonde Redhead, Jeff Buckley, The Twilight Sad
The Gallery is a four-piece indie rock band based out of Wakefield, England. The band’s new music video, “Pesticide,” is an energy-filled post-punk style rocker from beginning to end. And these young lads clearly enjoy themselves as well. And yet that in no way means they don’t take their music seriously – they do.
“We aim to redesign what a guitar band can be and convert their post-punk nihilistic flavors with hooks and rock tendencies,” says guitarist Joe Anderson-Smith.
The Gallery has opened for well-known alt bands like Pretty Vicious, No Hot Ashes and The Academic and they’ve performed at the Live at Leeds and Kendal Calling music festivals. The other three band members are drummer Benjamin Whiteley; bassist Sam Hawcroft and vocalist Matthew Rees.
Bands Opened For: Pretty Vicious, The Academic, No Hot Ashes
Musical Influences: Joy Division, Wolf Alice, Smashing Pumpkins, REM, The Fall, David Bowie
Cameron Elise is a singer-songwriter from San Marcos, Texas, outside of Austin. Her band’s new single, “East Side,” demonstrates her inept songwriting abilities and vocal strengths. The track is bluesy and folksy at the same time with strata of rock and soul.
Elise has been writing songs since childhood and has performed live throughout Texas for the past decade. The album that supports the single is titled Et Alia; it’s a “luscious blend of folk, soul, and Latin with a haunting spiritual touch.”
She also performs acoustic guitar supported by bandmates Enzo Azul on electric guitar; Jake Davila on drums and David Beck on bass. We love her smooth almost smoky vocals; they set a mood that works nicely with the instrumentation. This is just the beginning of an exciting new band.
Bands Opened For: Those Nights, Robert Kuhn, Marshall Anderson, Dem, The Deer
Musical Influences: Ruthie Foster, Cat Power, Joni Mitchell, Fiona Apple, Janis Joplin, Bebe
Based in Mexico City, Mexico, the DIY indie/alt. rock band Beke that got our attention with the new debut single, “Love Me Twice,” and the evocative accompanying music video. We don’t know much about the band but its new indie single was mixed by Bruno Ellingham (Massive Attack, UNKLE).
“The song is a very special song for us because is the first we created together as a band,” said vocalist and accordionist Daniela Mandoki. “We wanted to express through sounds the intimacy that exists in a relationship and how sometimes it feels like there is nothing outside this world build for two.”
She said the use of mirrors and reflections “symbolize that sometimes what we see in others is just a reflection of the emptiness within us.”
The other talented band members of Beke include Luis Rodríguez (guitar); Javier Jara (drums); Leo Díaz (guitar) and Aquiles Cantarell (bass).
Bands Opened For: No one yet
Musical Influences: Radiohead, Massive Attack, King Crimson
The song “Baby Blue” by Washington DC duo The OCN is one of those rare ‘cute, but sad’ melodic songs which are difficult to get out of your head.
The duo is a collaboration between two sisters, and DIY artists – songwriter and vocalist Olivia Taginya and guitarist Roxana Taginya. They are also both 22 years old and Libras.
The story behind the song, according to Liv (Olivia), has to do with watching friends change, grow and face challenges during the transition from teen to adult.
“Knowing them, they would never admit anything is wrong,” Liv says. “So, this inspired me to write the song as my way of saying that I know and understand where they’re at.
The duo’s debut album, Baby Blue, will drop this summer. “Every song in the album has a time period attributing to its sound which is why Baby Blue sounds beachy,” she adds.
Bands Opened For: None
Musical Influences: Alabama Shakes, Queen
With an acoustic guitar and a fondness for rock music and singer/songwriter vibes, plus +100 shows in ten-plus countries, Danish songwriter, vocalist, guitarist, and keyboardist Dan Rose’s (aka Dan Kiilerich Rosemunte) new single, “You Don’t Always Need A Plan” is a slow-burning alt. rock ballad that also makes a statement. It reminds us just a little of Mac DeMarco and Kurt Vile.
Rose mixes genres like rock, pop and alternative with some folk-punk in the vein of Jesse Malin and Ryan Adams. On April 16th, Rose dropped his debut album, No Time For Fear, produced by Greg Haver (Manic Street Preachers, Catatonia). The single is just one of a number of original and standout songs on the LP.
Bands Opened For: Sunflower Bean, Blonde Redhead
Musical Influences: Mac DeMarco, Bright Eyes/Conor Oberst, Nirvana
The Berlin-based band, Mystery Art Orchestra, released its debut album, Prismatic Dream, last December to critical acclaim. The LP was the result of a six-year-long writing, recording and mixing process.
Due to the success of that album and some packed live performances, the band has returned with the new 7″ vinyl, “Enjoy The Violence”. The music video above is the B-side “Losing Relation”. The band’s sound is a fantastic blend of post-punk, new wave and neo-psychedelia styles.
The success of the band is in part thanks to the experience and skills of musicians Tino Bogedaly; André Wlodarski and Bastian Müller. The trio’s big multi-layered sounds are impressive.
Bands Opened For: None
Musical Influences: “60s, ’80s, daily life”
The new album, Tropical Gothic, from Vienna, Austria’s Black Palms Orchestra has been dropped, featuring the gritty single and music video “Very Own Saints.”
The album is a celebration of ‘pleasures of contrasts’ including “Sunburn and darkness, religion and sex, road movie romance and apocalyptic images.”
Additionally, Scott McCloud (Girls Against Boys) and Swedish singer Jonas Almqvist appear on the album. The band has a number of unconventional descriptors for the types of genres they play: “Future Rock’n’Roll. Doom Pop. Country Noir.”
Bands Opened For: None
Musical Influences: Nick Cave, The Kinks
