culture
Sound Tracks: “Poison (SIQUEMU Remix)” by Kids On TV
The queer art-pop group teases its upcoming LP.
Believe it or not, music videos still exist. Sound Tracks trolls the internet to find the best and the worst of local artists’ new singles and the good, bad, or otherwise noteworthy visuals that accompany them.
Gay art-pop shape-shifters Kids On TV haven’t released an album since 2007′s Mixing Business With Pleasure, but they’re steadily building up to a big release this fall. As KoTV’s John Caffery explained to 2B magazine, the band’s new LP, Pantheon, will be an ambitious “attempt at celebrating the historical and fictional figures of our personal and collective mythologies.” The group has already explored the album’s themes on stage at Harbourfront Centre’s Hatch series. The first single and video, “Bobby,” featuring guest Diamond Rings (who shares KoTV’s predilection for face-painting and explosions of colour) was released in June. Other announced album guests include Austra’s Katie Stelmannis and Gentleman Reg. But before the album arrives, the Kids wanted to get one more piece of work properly presented.
“Poison (SIQUEMU Remix)” is a club-ready version of a KoTV song that appeared on their Shape-Shifting Mutants EP in 2009. The remix is stripped down to more basic and driving elements: a pervasive drum beat, visualized occasionally as a EKG blip in the video; an oft-repeated guitar lick; and a simple refrain. The message, as described by the band on OMGBlog, is simple: “‘Poison’ is about the authority of men in our personal lives, families and institutions and how no one has to put up [with] them if they don’t want to.”
In contrast to the the simple message, the video is a whirring kaleidoscope of lights, morphs, strange characters, and more. (You have to look pretty closely, but a spinning Vitruvian man montage nudges things into NSFW territory.) All in all, it’s as much of a blast to watch the video as it is to play the song on repeat. Kids On TV have cleared the way for their big fall release.
