Artist:
OUTRAGEOUS CHERRY
Label:
RAINBOW QUARTZ RECORDS
Video:
“UNLESS”
Director:
Nicolas Hill
Add Date:
May 15, 2005

Hello everyone! It’s Andy Gesner and the staff at HIP Video Promo with more great music videos! May is upon us and with it comes colorful new rock clips, from colorful rock artists. Part of the fun of sharing videos with you is that it brings us into intimate contact with some of our favorite bands and indie record companies. And we were thrilled to hear when Outrageous Cherry signed with Rainbow Quartz Records: it’s hard to imagine a better match between an act and its imprint. Rainbow Quartz has made its name synonymous with high-quality and skillfully performed neo-psychedelic guitar pop. And since 1994, no band has proven more effective at spinning out modern variations on the Nuggets aesthetic than Outrageous Cherry. From fuzzed-out garage psych (Outrageous Cherry) to creative reclamations of obscure material (Stereo Action Rent Party) to trippy AM gold (Out There In The Dark) to weird, chrome-plated space-rock epics (The Book Of Spectral Projections), here’s a group with encyclopedic knowledge of Sixties styles, an ear for retro melodies and arrangements, and instrumental talent to burn.

It helps that they’re from Detroit; Motown, land of the big backbeat and deep garage-rock heritage. Drummer Carey Gustafson pounds away at the snare and floor tom like she’s driving a soul revue, and singer Matthew Smith (also known for his work in the Volebeats and His Name Is Alive) channels Sky Saxon and Revolver-era John Lennon with equal ease. The group’s expansive dual guitar attack allows for experimentation and instrument processing, and they take every opportunity to ensure that their six-strings sound simultaneously far-out and immediate.

Our Love Will Change The World, the band’s second full-length release on Rainbow Quartz, returns Outrageous Cherry to the more straightforward psych-pop sound of their earliest recordings. It follows the direction charted by the group’s most recent EP releases: blunt, muscular, catchy, and tuneful. “Unless”, the lead single, features a sandpaper guitar riff, Courtney Sheedy’s elliptical, super psychedelic bass line, and the sort of instantly-familiar-yet-inventive melody that’s liable to get lodged in your head for weeks. Lead guitarist Larry Ray places the crown upon the track: a weird, drugged solo that’s just a bit too rock to have been played on a sitar.

A group like Outrageous Cherry demands a comparably acid-drenched video. Nicolas Hill obliges with a clip that features distorted images of the city, indulges in trippy effects, and paints in broad strokes with bold colors. Hearkening back to the band’s space-rock turn on The Book Of Spectral Projections, Hill puts the quartet in a fast-moving flying saucer. Passersby on the street stop and point as the band members cruise along under a tie-dyed sky. Matthew Smith – looking like a hipster version of the Mad Hatter in his dark sunglasses and feathered cap – steers the spaceship through city tunnels, a claustrophobic library, a delicatessen, and above the angular skyline. The clip plays havoc with perspective and scale: at one moment, the riders in the spacecraft appear to be tiny; the next, they loom over the skyscrapers like indifferent giants, guitars slung nonchalantly around their necks.

We couldn’t be happier to be working with the folks at Rainbow Quartz, whose love of great guitar pop is matched only by their indie rock work ethic. We have tons of CDs for on air giveaways and if we’d happy to schedule interviews, so keep your eyes peeled as they come through your area. If you need more info call Andy Gesner at 732-613-1779, or emailinfo@HIPVideoPromo.com .