With most of last generation's music video luminaries (Fincher, Jonze, Gondry, Romanek and Glazer) having successfully segued into features, who is left to pick up the mantle? I don't pretend to follow this medium very closely, but Jonathan Daughters -- the young helmer behind excellent videos for artists including Beck, Bright Eyes, The Shins and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs -- is capable, at his best, of work that can stand up to the benchmarks set by his predecessors.
Nowhere is this more obvious than in his remarkable collaborations with Feist. After honing his style with an effervescent video for "Mushaboom" (the standout track off Feist's 2005 album Let It Die), Daughters recently unveiled two new pieces -- "1234" and "My Moon My Man," both from Feist's upcoming album The Reminder -- that re-imagine the music video as magical musical, communal celebrations of body and movement, color and shadow. Daughters's filmmaking -- sweeping, elaborately choreographed takes unfolding in one location -- is gently rhapsodic, elevating Feist's aching ruminations on teenage hopes and naked hearts. The camera's distance from Feist is constantly in flux, as if it's struggling to keep up with her playful prowl. Sometimes it seems scared -- or at least intimidated -- by her lyrics' intimacy, other times excited by her lithe sexuality. Feist is a natural performer, who -- unlike many musicians -- takes pleasure in being watched by a lens. Daughters is entranced, and so are we.
