In 2007, The Wombats established themselves as a fun, innovative band with their debut, The Wombats Proudly Present: A Guide To Love, Loss & Desperation. The indie rockers garnered acclaim for catchy sing-a-long worthy songs like "Let's Dance To Joy Division" and "Kill the Director," but it was clear that their sound would have to mature a bit if they wanted to move forward.With the recent release of This Modern Glitch, the Liverpool trio—singer/guitarist Matthew Murphy, bassist Tord Øverland-Knudsen, and drummer Dan Haggis—have amped up their sound significantly, adding more sophisticated LCD Soundsystem-like beats and softer vocals that helps move them away from their formerly boyish tone. Now armed with tighter, more dancefloor-friendly melodies and an electronic sensibility, they’re also paying more attention to aesthetics. Their new music video for "Techno Fan" (below) shows that performance-based videos don't have to be boring—featuring cutting-edge graphics that distort the images and create electrifying color palettes, making the song breathe and come alive. The video shows the group in colorful silhouette sketches with angular graphics oscillating, with the original footage occasionally popping through.The Wombats ‘Techno Fan’ from Memo Akten on Vimeo."We received a locked down signed off edit of live footage that had been rejected by the label," said the band. "We were asked to process and stylize it."They called on The Found Collective who were contacted by the band and asked to spruce up the raw footage based on their previous work on the Depeche Mode “Fragile Tension” video. The collective, in turn, tasked Barney Steel with directing the video, which he chose to put through a rotoscoping treatment, and brought designer Memo Akten on board. Akten created a custom app using openFrameworks and used it to process the rotoscoped edit.This Modern Glitch is out now on Bright Antenna/ ILG/Warners.
Advertisement