I’ve been on a Jake Bugg jag, especially since hearing him and photographing him at Monster Music & Movies in Charleston last week.
Earlier today, Nowness premiered this pretty much brilliant music video for “Messed Up Kids” from the album Shangri La. That song will be on the upcoming 4-song EP, which will also include the ballad “Strange Creatures” that Bugg performed in Charleston.
Jake Bugg: Messed Up Kids on Nowness.com
I don’t think I’ve ever seen such an interesting use of super slo-mo (if that’s what it is), at least not in a music video. (Alan Rickman drinking tea would be hard to beat.) From Nowness:
Having sold 1.5m albums since the release of his eponymous debut in 2013, Bugg feels estranged from the surroundings that nurtured his songwriting: “I don’t really live anywhere at the moment as I’m always on the road,” says the Nottingham-born guitarist, whose latest release from Rick Rubin-produced second album Shangri La comes as he tours the US, before heading to South America, Australia, New Zealand and Japan. “On the first record, I talked a lot about my hometown because I was still a big part of it. Now after everything that has happened, going back feels crazy: I’m somebody looking in from the outside.”
A curious situation, for sure, for a young singer-songwriter. Having grown up in a council estate (housing project), Bugg now finds himself wealthy and estranged from the life that provided the creative fodder for the prodigious body of music he has already crafted. (Click here for a New Yorker story with some interesting biographical background and a review of last fall’s soldout show at NYC’s Webster Hall.)