Miike Snow - Paddling Out from Furlined on Vimeo.No one interprets a song quite like director Andreas Nilsson. Who else would have heard Yeasayer’s “Madder Red” and decided that the perfect visual accompaniment would be Kristin Bell mourning the loss of a horrid yet sympathetic chunk of flesh?Though he calls on the sci-fi of Phillip K. Dick and Lovecraftian horror in his imagery, the short-lived tales of his videos venture to a new degree of oddity. When he first teamed up with Miike Snow for their “Rabbit” video, the story revolved inexplicably around a bearded boy who turns out to be a fugitive, and then a serious 2 Live Crew nut, fandom later emboldened with a reenactment of the As Nasty As They Wanna Be cover. This time around, Nilsson crosses themes of cosmetic surgery, children as Victorian era spacemen, and the lucky buckled dancing shoes of Celtic lore.Despite the seeming randomness of all his creations, Nilsson’s work always rests on underlying emotion. For “Madder Red” it was awkward sentimentality. For MGMT’s “Flash Delirium” it was familial discomfort. And for “Paddling Out” it’s clearly the pleasure anyone can derive from seeing a nimble fat man dancing joyously.
