After nine years in the process, Tijuana shoegazers Shantelle are committed to releasing their debut album this year. Two months ago, we featured their Julio Medem-inspired first single, “Otto y Ana,” to very positive feedback, and they’re following the upbeat track with the equally romantic, but much darker, “Unamonos.” Loyal readers know we can’t help but to fall in love with anything resembling Sonic Youth or Dinosaur Jr., and this new Shantelle song is all about daydreaming and amp-on-acid dissonance.
Equally absorbing is this clip helmed by Aaron Soto, who seems to have found an ideal medium in music videos in which to translate his genre and sub-genre expertise. Having recently directed videos for Dani Shivers and Orlando, Soto is definitely about crafting a peculiar aesthetic into the backbone of Tijuana’s indie scene. Here, the band provides the visceral riffs and the director replies with erotic and macabre imagery. I’m in that group of people who believes only disco pieces should be longer than four minutes, but this clip, reminiscent of music video pioneers Stan Brakhage and Bruce Corner (in the '60s) and Nick Hooker and Jean-Baptiste Mondino (in the '80s), had me intrigued from beginning to end.