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Watch Junip’s Ironically Sinister ‘Your Life, Your Call’ Video

Junip, "Your Life, Your Call," video

José González may record mostly hushed, acoustic-based songs under his own name, but he’s no stuffy traditionalist. His albums take as much care with sonic textures as with intricate guitar figures and their often-bleak lyrics, and his videos show every bit the creativity of the tracks they accompany — see, for example, the video cycle for 2007’s bewitching In Our Nature. González’s krautrock-leaning band Junip are set to release their self-titled second album, and they’ve already memorably depicted a loveless couple in the video for mournful reverie “Line of Fire.” The same couple returns (via NPR) in the video for synth-streaked “Your Life, Your Call.”

Again directed by Mikel Cee Karlsson, who has also worked with the Knife side project Fever Ray, this clip turns away from the stay-positive lyrics — “Pull yourself together, draw the line / It’s your life, it’s your call,” González murmurs — and instead sets a disturbing scene. The man’s wife dances, and more, with a creepy young man in braces who materialized at the end of the “Line of Fire” clip.

Given Twin Peak connections in music videos recently from Majikal Cloudz and Beach House, the man’s long hair, villainous leer, and not-quite-real aspect bring to mind the David Lynch TV series’ demonic arch-villain, BOB. The videos’ dark themes should bear keeping in mind when Junip arrives on April 23.