Ciudad Juárez producer, Mock The Zuma, has shared an eerie, opaque video for "Octanaje," featuring Chilean MC Jamez Manuel, off his just-released Gauss EP on Mexican collective/imprint NAAFI. Coming directed by Federico Schott and shot in Xochitlán de las Flores, Hidalgo, the video's plot does not reveal itself readily. Instead it creates a narrative by impressionistically—almost forensically—compiling images of the desert, a busy highway, burning, smoke, a cemetery, and someone brutally disposing of a body in the dead of night.Details about the identities of the assailant and their victim are never revealed, and no context is provided that might explain what happens in the video. Speaking to Williamsburg/LA/Mexico City publication Remezcla, Schott described some observations about the current international political climate which relate to this lack of moral clarity: "The line between 'good' and 'bad' is being erased, and traditional roles are being questioned at the same time," he said. "El Chapo, Sean Penn, and Kate del Castillo, the 28,000 desaparecidos, the Enrique Peña Nieto administration, the DEA, Obama, Trump, and of course, ISIS – these roles are all changing."In 2014, THUMP featured Mock The Zuma, NAAFI co-founder Tomás Davó, and collective affiliate Smurphy as three of seven exciting young producers playing the Monterrey and Mexico City-based Nrml festival.Gauss is available for purchase now on iTunes.Follow Alexander on Twitter.
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