It may not stand the test of time in the manner of French New Wave or film noir, but there’s a distinctive style emerging in the quarantine music video: deliberately lo-fi and highly surreal. Charli XCX’s Claws, from the album she made entirely in lockdown last month, sees her cavorting in front of a green screen flashing with what looks like randomised screensaver imagery. In this week’s clip for Jason Mraz’s You Do You, he’s moving through Google Streetview riding a hastily drawn cat.
The queen of the genre so far, however, is 24-year-old Californian Remi Wolf. Made with London-based Icelandic artist Ágústa Ýr, her lurid dance sessions feature multiple versions of herself cavorting around strange digitised landscapes, like a hacked version of the Sims computer game.
The music suits the oddness: breezily funky on new single Disco Man, energetically soulful on Photo ID, and strutting in the sunshine on her finest moment so far, simply titled Woo! Worthy of a far bigger audience than she has currently, she’s found a way to stand out even when she can’t go out.
Watch Remi Wolf on YouTube:
Listen to Remi Wolf on SoundCloud:
