Ironically, this mysterious and disturbing video for Dark Meat’s “Dead Man” reminds me of the Jim Jarmusch film of the same name with its high contrast black and white scenes and focus on life’s only certainty and greatest mystery. As the vocals kick in, two members of Dark Meat embrace and sing beneath the splashes of a pouring waterfall, the most beautiful and vivid part of the video. What follows are scenes of the Athens collective singing the chorous and roaming about a forest a la Dead Man, only freakier, raising their hands to the sky and at times obscured by the sun beaming through the trees. The bewildered collective eventually reaches a river at which point the video switches over to color as they each undergo a sort of bizarre baptismal ceremony, facing a fate that we all must eventually undergo.
[MP3]: Dark Meat ”Dead Man”
Universal Indians (Expanded Edition), Vice Records; 2008
Dark Meat play FRICTION @ Music Hall of Williamsburg on 5/28 (Tix)