UNKLE's latest video is for the track 'heaven' which featured on the 'end titles... stories for film' album of recent collective recordings, and it continues UNKLE's tendency to produce unforgettable music videos. the footage for this piece was originally from lakai's 'fully flared' skateboarding film; collaborative directors spike jonze and ty evans re-edited a sequence which shows southern californian skaters demonstrating their skills. footage of skaters is slowed down to a snail pace which makes you focus on minute details like t-shirts rippling in the wind, or the skaters wavering in balance when making impact with the ground. what separates this from a simple homage to skaters is of course the unexpected explosions of parts of the skate park which the skaters navigate through. this is really where the slowed down speed of the film has maximum effect as we see sparks flying, concrete shattering, clouds of rubble hanging in the air - all in precise detail. the album this track featured on, 'end titles... stories for film', was made to harness a relationship between music and images, an area of audio-visual association. in the credits to the album james lavelle described making music for film or television as "frustrating" because:
"a lot of the music you're making ends up sitting on the shelf, neither properly released or heard. a waste really, we thought. so this album is our attempt to alleviate our musical frustrations whilst hoping that it will find a wider audience."
the menacing 'heaven' is a great track in it's own right, and this video could be their best since the groundbreaking work on 'rabbit in your headlights' by chris cunningham. the video builds slowly in tension and expectancy, like the song, towards a gallant conclusion. the images are successfully related with the musical backdrop in both matter and timing, producing an extraordinary relationship between sound and picture that lavelle clearly wanted to achieve when making his music.
