This month’s featured Wisconsin filmmaker in the Central Library’s “LakeFront Cinema” series, Aaron Granat hasn’t limited himself to making video art. In honor of Aaron’s appearance this Thursday night at the Central Madison Library, here’s a look at some of his music videos and the strange inwardness they explore:
“Mannerisms” — Cold Vision
The Milwaukee-based hip-hop project Cold Vision combines the talents of producer Original Vision and emcee Cold Medina, and Granat’s ensuing video for “Mannerisms” adds a sinister element to the duo’s high-minded awareness. Opening hums don’t clarify whether they belong to the track itself or the whir of the Toyota that just pulled into the back lot. When the masked mystery men storm the house and toss a hooded emcee into their car, Granat blurs between cuts but time also seems to shake even when the masked characters move, and a backseat struggle shakes and blurs into a willing hostage situation — Stockholm syndrome by way of editing booth.
Cruising through the rainy, dreariness of Madison spots like N Shore Drive and Brittingham Park, the video seems to hand off its perspective from the emcee to the viewer in a final fudging of reality and consciousness. As a hooded figure offers a drag, has the audience become the storyteller? The track seems to answer that question with another: “I’m asking who am I, but what’s it seem to matter?”
“Expectations Pt. II” — Lewis Elder
Purportedly completed in 24 hours, “Expectations Pt. II” takes a markedly lighter approach, giving most of its showcase over to Elder’s wardrobe and personality. Sporting assorted jerseys and Hawaiian tees, Elder exudes confidence in spite of the absurdity around him. Assorted characters appear behind the rapper with laundry detergent and hubcaps all while he mock-threatens the camera with bottles of Febreeze and cans of Raid.
Judging from the dishes and garbage bags, Elder looks like he’s up to some housekeeping but it’s never all that clear — maybe because of that lint roller he keeps rapping into.
“Sell Out” — Smiley Gatmouth
There’s a playful style to the lyrics of Smiley Gatmouth’s “Sell Out,” but the words of the Denver-based rapper betray a dark, uncertainty beneath the swagger. Granat alternates between seemingly candid footage of Gatmouth distributing copies of his LP on State Street and unsettled shots of the rapper sitting on a nondescript mattress. The former sequences, with bystanders tossing records like frisbees or throwing them in the garbage, deflate any modicum of hype the artist might be hinting at, while Gatmouth’s darkroom lounging feels submerged inside the rapper’s own pitch black consciousness, floating alongside rhymes about eating kittens and humble brags. “Keep my CD spinning” is about the closest the track ever comes to an actual chorus.
Granat book-ends the video with the same street musician, who casually tosses the LP behind his shoulder, and it’s enough to suggest the rapper’s proclamations of going “mainstream” are, much like the darkness that threatens to swallow the video whole, lost in the recesses of Gatmouth’s mind.
- You can see more of Aaron’s work this Thursday night at 6:30p at the Central Madison Library in Rm 302. FREE.