Today we take a look at the new short film from HTRK for the track “Chinatown Style” off their current LP release Psychic 9-5 Club out now on Ghostly International. The video is co-directed by Nathan Corbin and Tony Lowe. Corbin, who also plays in the band Exceptor, produced HTRK’s current album, as well as directing their video for “Bendin” off Work (work, work). For his part, Tony Lowe runs the NYC production company Raw Tings, and was part of the crew that brought us the recent video for K. Leimer’s track “Lonely Boy“.
Here, they take a peripatetic tact, following several artistic protagonists thru their day. The video opens with a delivery boy arriving at a very intriguing, and potentially eye-opening photoshoot, before riding off into the night. When the storyline next picks up, we watch a young woman as she prepares an octopus for her meal, before going out to DJ at a local club. Meanwhile, the footage is interspersed with images of a young man making a salad at a neighborhood restaurant, before becoming a dancer at the local club.
“Chinatown Style” cuts between these various storylines, seemingly joining the characters random interactions into a larger, tho ultimately unexplainable narrative. It’s intimate, unassuming approach, coupled with the use of diegetic sound, gives it a real cinéma vérité feel!
