Young the Giant’s September release of another travel-induced, impromptu music video is here to add to their growing repertoire of roadside, seaside, and hillside (pretty much wherever) jam sessions belonging to their “In The Open” series. Their latest performance comes to us from the edge of Angeles Crest Highway in southern California, and, being next on a stack of shoots that have thus far accumulated the YouTube equivalent of a surgeon’s retirement fund in views, it is definitely something worth paying attention to.
Here’s what we’re getting into: an indie rock band reinventing yet another tune from their second studio album, Mind Over Matter, in the name of…well, making music as the mood strikes. Evident from their past videos, Young the Giant’s penchant for finding interesting backdrops in between playing amphitheaters and digging in with a melodic weave of minor chords and some light percussion rings of being hyper genuine; it shines through from previous “In The Open” releases to this—this time, we get the album’s namesake, and it blows the original away.
The entirety of “Mind Over Matter (In The Open)” is played and filmed within a tunnel, the camera touching on each of the band members as we pan left, right, then back again. The closer we get to each, the more distorted and fuzzy the light at the end of the tunnel becomes, affecting the scene in much the same way the sounds of the five-piece ensemble mingle with the enclosure’s natural acoustics—brilliantly. Young the Giant’s delivery of a synth-free “Mind Over Matter” is definitely an experience to float through, and will have you wondering where your time went by the fifth replay. By the time we begin to backpedal with two of the band’s members through the mouth of the tunnel and out into the sunlight, the resolution we experience is consistent with something minimal, effective, and built of nothing but raw music.
So play it, and then replay it. Go into your bathroom, belt the chorus, and pretend you are in a cave (guilty). Revel in that echo and thrum of acoustic guitar strings, and let the beat wash over you a bit, even if makes you a few minutes late for work.
Here’s the original video:
