Club Fonograma's Best Music Videos of 2011

“Meaningmore”
12. TXEMA NOVELO
(MENTIRA MENTIRA)
Mentira Mentira, the project of Tijuana-born hard rocker Gaby, drops fiery hooks and silly raw enunciations that seem to be coming straight from yet another band that helped punk rock to finally break in 1991, rather than something that could be labeled under the “rock regio” tag. Part of Mexican label Vale Vergas Discos recent 7” compilation, their bafflingly restless “Meaningmore” features a video directed by Txema Novelo (who also handled Juan Cirerol’s lovely “Toque y Rol”) that, just like the documentary 1991: The Year that Punk Broke, perfectly manages to conceal the disruptiveness of its noisy rock with the irony of both its lyrics and the musicians’ antics towards the estranged crowd, in this case attendees at a comic con in Mexico City. - Pierre Lestruhaut (originally published on International Tapes)

“Nuevo día
para comenzar”
11. ANDRES DALY
(COMO ASESINAR FELIPES)

Chile’s most proficient contemporary urban act also happens to fulfill much of a hipster’s jazz quota. In the clip “Nuevo Dia Para Comenzar” by Andres Daly, Como Asesinar Felipes avoids the industrial manufacturing of their bleak rhymes to instead contemplate and romanticize their orchestrations. Here we get to listen to an excerpt from an interview, where an artist reflects on her music as a liberating personal exercise. Whether it’s the accompanying musicians that helped her establish a diva status or the abused and undeclared musical instruments that now carry her past ghosts, her days of glory will soon turn into a blood squashing last performance. This is not misogynistic; it’s artistic revenge with some class. - Carlos Reyes


“Wini Cooper”
10. BODEGA (TRON)
Attention: this video might disturb you. Tron is the new band by Alejandro Tonella, who has recruited two allies, Ana & Melon, to make the ultimate pig-themed grindcore punk band. These guys put on pig heads and put on the bloodiest, most explicit shows, which are also, very entertaining. Part of our staff felt a bit hurt by this video, totally understandable under vegan sensibilities, but even they can’t help but acknowledge the clip’s powerful images on consumerism and reproduction. “Wini Cooper” happens to be a pretty awesome song as well; it’s as raw and explosively violent as its video, and we can’t help but be reminded of the great (and now nonexistent) Maniqui Lazer, who also happened to be from Mexicali, Baja California. You gotta love the ultra-girly font that reads: “No animal was hurt during the shooting of this video.” – Carlos Reyes

“These Days”
09. JAIME MARTINEZ
(LORELLE MEETS THE OBSOLETE)

I know what you’re thinking; it’s been been decades since Loveless, just stick a fork in it already. Well, yeah, but then you have bands like Guadalajara's Lorelle Meets the Obsolete, which render your petty doubts, well, obsolete. If the excellent On Welfare wasn’t enough to curb your doubts, a video for one of its better songs probably won’t do much to sway you, that is unless it’s directed by Jaime Martinez (of jiggly-gif fame) and features an innocuous-yet-oddly-alluring girl slowly ingesting an ice cream cone...backwards! To be fair, it looks better than it reads. Rather than recycle the pixel-junk psychedelia of "Turnaway" – a move that, admittedly, would've fit all too perfectly with Lorelle's sound – Martinez chooses to fixate on a single, oneiric image as it unfurls from a simplicity that borders on banality toward aesthetic transcendence. – Reuben “Judah” Torres

“Granada”
08. ANTONIO GALLARDO
(MARÍA Y JOSÉ)

It still feels like María y José is Mexico's best-kept secret. It's in God's plans to see justice being done, and we can't hide our enthusiasm toward Tony Gallardo once again with of this cool DIY video of "Granada.” We recently described this psychedelic bolero as "a romantic statement, a ritualistic song, and a sign of the times.” With the descriptive subtitle "este video va dedicado a todas ellas” (dedicated to all the ladies that broke his heart), our Tijuana hero puts the q in quirkiness. The religious entrance is sublime, but once the cat meowing starts, it turns into a self-exploitative and confessional sequence that almost makes you think of La Mara Salvatrucha, or just realize he's a twenty-something with identity issues. I had always imagined a video with kids planting grenades at the dancefloor or a recreation of "La Danza de los Viejitos." Perhaps I'm the one with issues. – Carlos Reyes

“Me Gusta
La Noche”
07. PAULINA GIUSTINIANOVICH & DIEGO ADRIAN (ADRIANIGUAL)

“Me Gusta La Noche” is a stunning frame of afternoon bliss, capturing the suburban life of a group of friends with some great dance moves. Like last year's "Fiebre" by She's a Tease, we're presented with an army of dancers/walkers that first goes through a sort of horizontal, platform-based march through some of Santiago de Chile’s most colorful corners, they eventually find coordination with the camera and decide to confront it. Along the way, we can also see a dazzling in-the-cage cameo by Alex Anwandter. Directors Paulina Giustinianovich and Diego Adrian really hit it out of the park with every frame, particularly towards the end as they approach freedom through the glimpse of the night. – Carlos Reyes

“Las reinas no pueden escoger lo que su corazón quiere”
06. PATRICIO HINOJOSA & SANTIAGO VELA (UVI.LOV)

On their new release Caligari EP, Monterrey’s dreampop quartet Uvi.Lov fully submerges into the conceptual panorama of Robert Wiene’s The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. Last year, the band live scored the German expressionist horror classic and they’ve captured the wonderful experience on their new album. The video for their single “Las Reinas No Pueden Escoger Lo Que Su Corazón Quiere” is sinister, perverse, and quite frightening. Shot on a very cold and highly contrasted black and white, the surrealist clip keeps the isolated corners and dark fringes of the silent film era. We get very little clues as to who these characters are or what they're doing, but if we were to follow the concept of the EP, I would say the three characters in the video are travelers lost in a collective unconsciousness. – Carlos Reyes


“El Final de
la Noche”
05. CANADA (PEGASVS)
Empowered by the secrecy of what’s bound to become the most promising band of 2012, “El Final de la Noche” will be remembered as the one time Spain’s multi-platform production house Canada broke all its frame-to-frame, auteur-driven landscapes. In a one of a kind (almost eventful) opportunity, the worldly influential imprint cosigned as a one-standing family as they witnessed and captured the alignment of Pegasvs’ aural constellations. Canada intervenes in the experience only when allowed. Who knew these authors could also push for the sublime under such submissive conditions. Gorgeously concealed and aptly restrained from the gory and glown-out cinema montage they’re known for, what Canada has ultimately done here is to introspect into a commendable grand performance. – Carlos Reyes


“Toro”
04. VIRGILI JUBERO
(EL COLUMPIO ASESINO)
As ridiculous as it may sound, people who wear dark glasses at night might be the coolest people on earth. In El Columpio Asesino’s hit “Toro” (off their album Diamantes), video director Virgili Jubero gets inspired by Robert Zemeckis’ Romancing the Stone and Tony Scott’s The Hunger to deliver the coexistence of heaven and hell. If the song already had a gangster vibe to it, this video romanticizes that in the world of gothic dreamers. These badass-looking kids make the day become night just by walking by; you can feel the shimmering attraction between them and their consuming surroundings. Their dark coats and golden accessories make them shine, and hide some pain as well. – Carlos Reyes


“Mi Novio
Gremlin”
03. FREDO LANDAVERI
(CARMEN SANDIEGO)
“Mi Novio Gremlin” is one of Joven Edad’s great standouts; the dictating soulful guitar is immediately grabbing, the whispering singing broadcasts emotional pain, and every ending phrase is one less shot at breath taking. In our review of the album, we highlighted Carmen Sandiego’s ability to paraphrase love’s struggles through the practice of dramedy, and they take such premise to new heights on their mesmerizing clip directed by Buenos Aires filmmaker Fredo Landaveri. Here we’re taken into a sort of mythological dream that sexualizes every frame and object on its way. Fortunately, Landaveri’s thoughtful eye doesn’t stop in twink porn provocateur territory; instead, we’re presented with images that are almost as baroque as Julian Hernandez’s love-chasing trilogy Mil Nubes de Paz Cercan El Cielo, El Cielo Dividido, and Rabioso Sol, Rabioso Cielo. – Carlos Reyes


“Da Pa Lo Do”
02. ENGEL LEONARDO
(RITA INDIANA Y LOS MISTERIOS)
No one really questioned the unorthodox virtues in the narrative structure or production design of “Da Pa Lo Do,” but the moment Rita Hernandez and director Engel Leonardo decided to darken the artist’s face, it became a topic of sensibility-carving concern and better yet, a topic of conversation. While some of us inclined our undivided attention to the video’s aesthetic proportions, others got hooked by the power of its literal imagery. No matter what side of the discussion you stand on (or just how much you decide to acknowledge), the clip left no one indifferent, something political and critical texts should always strike for. – Jean-Stephane Beriot

“Los Bikers”
01. MILTON MAHAN (DËNVER)

Band member and music video visionnaire Milton Mahan approaches the psyche and carnal turbulence of a young renaissance in a clip that is beyond an aesthetic exercise. Carrying Música, Gramática, Gimanasia’s well-deserved status of a young adult masterpiece, Mahan has crafted a video that is full of corporal movement and still has the luxury of carving emotion through its soaring stillness. One year ago we described the song as one set “on midair tones, elliptical to its own tragic story,” and this clip (shot at Santiago's Museo de Bellas Artes) accomplishes just that. Like its thematic cousin from earlier this year (Carmen Sandiego’s “Mi Novio Gremlin”) and the Catholic youth-in-revolt images from Almodovar’s La Mala Educación, Mahan and DP Cristobal Portalupii have plenty to say about a handful of uncensored canvases in masculinity and dramatic space. “Los Bikers” (along with "Segundas Destrezas" as its sublime encore) is emotionally pulling from every one of its four corners – unassuming of its own glorious architectural beauty and with every one of its shots ready to be hanged on a wall. – Carlos Reyes