Sunglassed, porcelain-skinned model: “OK, so I’m supposed to be riding this motorcycle in front of a green screen while a fan blows my luxurious hair back for nearly four minutes. What’s my inspiration?”

Music video director with English accent: “Right, beau’iful, pretend it’s 1986 and airy synthesizers are back in fashion, just like that spotted dress you’re wearing. You’re first riding through a heavily industrial-looking city on your way out to the countryside, feeling sunshiney pleasure as you finally escape to the clean air. Lean forward and back on the motorcycle, unlike anybody who’s ever rode a motorcycle before. Oh! Now look with back just a hint of fear in your face to make sure nobody’s chasing you! All right, you’re safe now — except you’ve steered off the country road and into a swirling, three-dimensional world of black-and-white patterns that look like they belong in cartoons from the 1980s. Now you’re getting showered with confetti! And cut!”

Ernest Greene of Washed Out: “Now do it all again, but way more chill.”

From last year’s very bizarre departure “The Age of Adz,” Sufjan Stevens gives stop-motion life to Royal Robertson’s deranged sci-fi art. Owners of “Adz” will recognize much of the paranoid schizophrenic’s strange work from the liner art that accompanied the album.

The video definitely illustrates Stevens’ odd fixation with Robertson, leaving us to wonder how it will affect the future of the baroque indie composer’s work. —Matt Carney

At first listening to this new track from Phil and the Osophers, I worried that my headphones were wearing out. Turns out the cracking and fizzling is just part of the recording, very much like this splotchy and frenetic video that appears to have been shot on some sort of psychedelic film that’s been aging since 1967.

Very Kinks-y.—Matt Carney

The 2000s saw folk singers assemble indie-orchestra bands loaded with violins, cute musician girls and scruffy faces (Sufjan Stevens, Lost in the Trees, Austin, Texas's Mother Falcon).

Portland’s Typhoon just may have literally taken this sub-sub-genre as high as it’s ever gone.

A few select descriptors from NPR music writer Michael Katzif’s write-up of Givers’ Tiny Desk Show: bright, tropical, polyrhythmic, slinky, wild, loose, fun, buoyant, raw, celebratory, Afrobeat, crisp, alluring, spirited, sunny, exuberant, and bobbing.

I feel like that just about says, it don’t you? That and singer Taylor Guarisco’s hilarious white boy head-bobbing. Dude moves like a drug-addled parakeet.

OOPS: It appears you have to surf through to NPR's site to get more than just the audio. Please do so. It's a very spirited, very fun desk show.

OKC indie rockers Junebug Spade played inside RedPin Restaurant & Bowling Lounge for the latest episode of “Chevy Bricktown Showcase”! Check out the video below:

At this point, music videos are all OK Go’s got going for them. In this one for “All Is Not Lost,” you get a look at the band and accompanying dance troupe from an angle that would probably get you arrested in a few states.

Whoever said outdoor electronic day shows were boring?

James Blake performed "CMYK" at Pitchfork Music Festival a few weekends back, accompanied by a pretty talented drummer and another guy who appears to switch between a guitar for the song's CV radio coda and some sort of synthesizer for the frenetic groove in the middle.

Toss in some crazy vocal effects from Mr. Blake and you've got a couple thousand happy, dancing hipsters.

A little while back, mopey indie rockers The National contributed the song “Exile Vilify” to the “Portal 2” soundtrack. The video game teamed up with the Brooklyn band to host a contest to find the best fan-made video for the song. We now officially have the winner of that contest.

I give you the world’s saddest hand puppet:



You can watch a bunch of other fan vids on the “Suggestions” bar of the YouTube page for the hand puppet video. But I don’t recommend it, as listening to “Exile Vilify” more than once will completely eviscerate your spirits.

You can follow the band on Twitter here.

So Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros showed up on Conan O’Brien’s Summer Concert Series Tuesday night, and as the ginger comedian was about to introduce the band, he got a little ... distracted.

“Were you guys just doing ‘Creep’ right now?” he asked.

So he busted out his best Cockney accent, and an impromptu jam session ensued. Watch for yourself, via Team Coco.



“I wan’ you ‘oo no’ice ... when I’m naw’ awoun’ ...”

You can follow Conan's hilarious Twitter feed here.