Flora from Kansas, Radkey, EZGI, and more local music videos
Illustrated by Katelyn Betz
Anyone else feel like they’re having post-World Cup comedown? I live in Lawrence, and there was so much to do each and every week for the better part of a month and a half; it never really felt like we had that summer dip. You know the one, where everything slows down from the end of June through the beginning of August. Now it’s like, “What? No more weekly street parties?”
Thankfully, local artists have stepped up with some fantastic new videos to break up your doomscrolling. Take a peak at some vibrant indie rock, excellently danceable pop, and gorgeous choral harmonics in this latest Cine Local roundup.
Flora from Kansas, “The End”
Fresh off the inclusion of her track, “The Ghost Is Me,” in the Prime Video series Off Campus, and its attendant rise in her profile, Flora from Kansas has a new single, “The End.” The indie-pop track touches on “toxic relationships, blurred boundaries, and finally knowing when to walk away” and the accompanying video by director Nate Sullivan is a different direction from the musician’s previous Marc Havener-directed visuals. While those videos could easily be seen as short films (with “The Ghost Is Me” playing several film fests to prove it), “The End” is a VHS daydream. As the song is something Flora wanted “to sound like a plot [she] would see in a teen drama,” it feels appropriate that this new video is akin to outtakes from a ’90s series like My So-Called Life.
Radkey, “Victory”
“This video is an independent creation and is not authorized, endorsed, sponsored, or otherwise approved by The Walt Disney Company,” says the YouTube description for the latest single from KC rock trio Radkey and the title track to their new album. It sees the newly public domain characters of Steamboat Willie and Popeye duking it out as the brothers take over a boat and pilot it to a desert island in an animated black-and-white, Dragon Ball Z battle. The Isaiah Radke-directed video is wild, irreverent, and it’s very much Radkey.
You can snag Victory on vinyl on its own or along with autographed animation cels from the Radkey shop.
TheBabeGabe, “Love Language”
Director Jerry P. was behind many of Blackstarkids’ iconic music videos, so it comes as no surprised that he’s the one behind “Love Language,” the first official video from TheBabeGabe’s new EP of the same name. Hypercolored hyperpop, loaded with almost neon pinks and TheBabeGabe channeling her inner ’90s pop diva with all of the assertive confidence that implies, “Love Language” is a gem of a jam of a bop.
If you need more TheBabeGabe in your life, check out her absolutely massive live performance for the Flew the Coop Sessions, wherein she’s surrounded by a crowd of fans dancing and partying like there’s no tomorrow.
Sweeping Promises, “Cocoon”
Is there an album we’re looking forward to more than Sweeping Promises’ You Say I Romanticize? No. The duo of Lira Mondal and Caufield Schnug have rapidly become part of the Lawrence scene over the course of the last half decade, and the video from the band and Shawn Brackbill includes footage of the band playing live at the town’s Replay Lounge and White Schoolhouse, among others. The Wire-meets-Pylon track makes you try to decide whether you want to mosh or dance, and we absolutely cannot wait to have the rest of these tracks spinning on our turntable when it drops via Sub Pop on Friday, August 14.
You can catch Sweeping Promises at the Toy Store in Lawrence on Wednesday, August 12, or at the White Schoolhouse on Tuesday, September 29.
Sara Swenson, “Your Town” feat. the Unity Choir and Mark Lowrey
We were big fans of Sara Swenson’s first video for “Your Town” when it dropped back in the spring, and the KC singer-songwriter has released a new version, recorded live with the Unity Choir and jazz pianist Mark Lowrey. As Swenson explained in an email, “It’s a live recording that’s a really beautiful celebration of culture and community, produced by my documentary-making husband Michael Price. In the timeframe here as we wrap up the World Cup in KC and all the love for all the cultures, in addition to the politics and ICE of today, so far it seems like this is meaning something to folks.”
If you thought the chorus was big before, this will blow you away.
Post Sex Nachos, “All For You”
Yes, yes: we know that Post Sex Nachos have moved to Nashville, but they’ll always be Midwest boys to us. For “All For You,” the third single from their forthcoming fifth release, Big Bad, engaging in a bit of homesickness as they tour the country. Director Hunter Pendleton captures the band in and out of the van and trying to find a bit of normalcy around the dinner table in myriad locations all across the US, to varying degrees of success. Lead singer Sammy Elfanbaum describes Post Sex Nachos’ latest as “a long-winded love song for those who stay at home while their partners work on the road.”
You can pre-order Post Sex Nachos’ Big Bad here, and it’s out on Friday, September 18.
EZGI, “Yine Bana Gel (Come to Me)”
We first caught the talented Turkish cellist Ezgi Karakus and her eponymous band EZGI at a Score Lawrence soccer celebration and viewing party for the USA vs Turkey match, alongside Lawrence’s LYXE and VCMN, and while we were unfamiliar with anything about the new group, we left the show needing more. Live, EZGI sees Karakus perform on vocals and cello alongside the Freedom Affair’s Dave Brick, Branden Moser, and Cole Bales, along with Lava Dreams’ Lauren Williams, and it’s a psychedelic melange of spaghetti western, Turkish disco, and ’70s funk. The song and Bales-directed video feel like they came from a decades-old bootleg tape, and will make you groove like nothing else you’ve heard all year.
“Yine Bana Gel (Come to Me)” is available as a limited-edition vinyl single backed with EZGI’s first single, “Kadin,” from Groove King Records’ Bandcamp.
If you’re a local artist with a new video to share, email nicholas.spacek@gmail.com
