Airick Woodhead’s uniquely infectious take on dance music takes physical shape in the new video for Doldrums’ track, “Loops”, off his Sub Pop debut record, The Air Conditioned Nightmare. Thud percussion and spatial xylophone-style electronics accompany Woodhead’s high, handsomely melodied voice. The video, directed by Lily X, is a manically cut romance between an dubiously happy bald man, a piece of broken mirror and the woman envisioned in it. Tie-dye colors and swirling cartoon graphics create a bizarrely surreal environment, transforming him into something of a sad crying clown, as his face is superimposed onto the moon, giving him its pallid color, and he is sent dreamily to be with his mirror-love. The drums kick out in a spacy chorus, and the key alternates from its forlorn flowery beauty, in a lower, almost dissonant succession, as though he can’t make up his mind which he prefers, and confirming that perhaps not all is joyful bliss. The video is perhaps a depiction of self-love turned physical, the “plain-faced” Pagliacci admiring the attractiveness of his love in what is supposed to be a mirror, and ending in tearful disappointment.
