Experimentation is one of the keys to artistic achievement.
This isn’t only true of radical artists, such as Picasso, or radical musicians, such as Stravinsky — it’s true of any artist. Experimentation is growth, and one band that’s definitely been doing a lot of growing lately is Fake Laugh, particularly with their latest single, “Mind Tricks.”
Fake Laugh Pushes Genre
The experimentation in Fake Laugh’s latest effort is twofold, because along with the track, the band released a new music video. At first, there seems to be little out of the ordinary about the video. But if you look closely at some of the techniques used in the video you’ll see do some unexpected things to further the themes in the song.
In addition to the fairly standard music video shots — of band members walking around New York City, navigating the subways, a live performance, and so on — there are several shots of shadows cast during the performance, changing color, shape, position, and texture with the lights. The shots seem to parallel the title of the song itself: mind tricks. The video ends with an obscured shot into one of the stage lights, furthering the theme of confusion.
The song itself also delves into this theme, obviously. The dreamy, psychedelic tune goes right along with the themes of confusion in the song. These themes are belied by the upbeat and very melodic guitar part, matched note for note in places by the bass.
In the chorus, the phrase “It doesn’t feel like tricks at all” is repeated continuously, as if the singer is trying to convince himself as much as he is the listener. The method is very well-employed, and all the elements of the song itself and the video come together to give us, the listeners, a figurative mind trick.
New material with this kind of potency is always promising for a band. Experimentation is a process of trial and error, and in this trial, we give Fake Laugh’s “Mind Tricks” the most positive of verdicts.
Hear more Fake Laugh here.
