Searching for our spirit animals

It seems like only a few weeks ago that I wrote about a new Hey Ocean! video. Oh right, it was. Well, the Vancouver funk-folk outfit has released yet another new clip from its 2008 album It’s Easier to Be Somebody Else, this time for “Too Soon.”

In the video, the band plays in a wide, pillared hall with bright back-lighting and lots of sudden cuts. It doesn’t have the same candy-coated appeal of the MuchMore Top 10-cracking “A Song About California,” instead opting for art-house imagery, including tribal dancers, an anonymous painter, and a white-clad figure holding up lyrical cue cards. It’s a perfect fit for the song, with its hypnotically repetitive guitar riff and spiritually cryptic lyrics (“We sat there searching for / Our spirit animals / Mine appeared on the shore / We never once saw yours”). This ominous groove eventually gives way to a joyous chorus, with funky strumming at what sounds like djembe percussion.

Hey Ocean! fills your guitar with pigeons

Hey Ocean‘s previous single, “A Song About California,” reached #2 on the MuchMore Top 10—an incredible feat for a band that is essentially unsigned (it shares the Pop Machine imprint with Said the Whale). Quick on the heels of that success, Hey Ocean! has released another video, this time for “Terribly Stable.” Unlike the glizy clip for “A Song About California,” the new video doesn’t feature the band at all, opting instead for goofy animation made out of paper cutouts. The cutouts are are only marginally discernible as human, meaning they can perform actions that would be to risqué if shot in live action: they get drunk, have sex (then film it), smoke from a hookah, and attack one another with a fire extinguisher. The video ends with a spiky-haired cutout sticking a bomb down the toilet, causing the building to blast off into space.

The song itself is a slightly surprisingly choice as a single, with dense, clattering percussion and funky strumming that’s a bit too fast to dance to. It’s not one of the catchier songs on It’s Easier to Be Somebody Else but it’s still a great tune, showing off Hey Ocean’s range and rhythmic virtuosity.

Click here to check out the video.

Also be sure to take a look at the band’s previous videos for “A Song About California” (here) and “Alleyways” (here). It’s Easier to Be Somebody Else is available now.