This Russian music video dates back to 1994. It’s infectious energy makes it the perfect post-holiday pick-me-up. Directed by Slava Ushakov, it brings to life the nonsensical lyrics of the song “Haru Mamburu” by the Russian rock band Nogu Svelo. There’s an AWN article that offers some details about the director Ushakov. Also, an MP3 of the song can be downloaded from the band’s website.

(Thanks, Craig Clark)

What a perfect way to start the weekend! Today marks the debut of a new music video by illustrator/comic artist Dave Cooper in collaboration with animator/director Nick Cross. The video is for Danko Jones’ song “King of Magazines.” Nick says, “The animation was all done in Flash by myself and Steve Stefanelli, working from Dave’s storyboard and rough designs.”

I’ve already watched it a few times and can’t get enough of it. It’s so refreshing to see a cartoon that actually indulges and celebrates its cartooniness. Lots of joyful animated FUN in this one.

This isn’t new, but I feel the videos from the Japanese pop band Sour are certainly worthy of Brew attention. Hangetsu, above, combines hand shadows and animation; their latest, Omokage No Saki, uses pixilation (or cleverly done CG) over live-action—really clever ways to visualize the band’s music.

(Thanks, Will Mendes)

Spanish animator César Díaz created this lyrical sand-animated music video for El Combolinga’s “No Corras Tanto.” Díaz is also a member of the band.

There’s also this making-of video that gives a sense of the painstaking effort that was involved in animating all that sand:

Inappropriate it may be, but the music video for Lele’s “Breakfast” gets a chuckle out of me. The raunchy lyrics (NSFW) are made that much funnier by the crude animation that illustrate the words literally. The drawings in the video are by Piet Parra, who is also a member of the band. It is the first animation work done by Parra, though he is a well known Dutch illustrator who runs runs the clothing label Rockwell. Parra, whose style owes a lot to Sixties and Seventies graphic trends, didn’t exactly animate the piece so much as he made a bunch of illustrations that were later timed out to the music by another artist, Sandder.

There’s an extensive interview with Parra on the Submarine Channel. His description of working in animation for the first time is rather amusing:

Yeah, that was a lot of work. Especially since I had never animated before. Jezus! And Sandder helped a lot. He did the editing. I just made the drawings. We kind have a double process going on. I draw everything onto paper first and then I scan it in and trace it in Illustrator, so that it becomes vector. That way I can scale it. Then Sandder took all the single frames and put those into a program to do the editing. He also took care of the timing, made sure it all matched up with the beats. I would be drawing and after thirty frames I thought, oh well, that’s more than enough, but with that you only actually fill a second and a half. It’s completely crazy! That’s why some parts are repeated. Otherwise we would still be working on it.

A new exhibit of Parra’s artwork titled “Boo to the Hoo” opens this Friday, December 5, in Paris at the The Lazy Dog (2 Passage Thiere 75011). Opening reception is from 6-9pm with an afterparty at Le Regine.

Also worth checking out is this video documentary with Parra. The final minute is particularly interesting as he shows a clip from a Famous Popeye cartoon that directly inspired a new series of MacBook and iPhone sleeves that he recently created:

This viral piece was directed and created by CISMA (Denis Kamioka) and the Birdo Studio in Brazil.

What it is advertising I’m not sure (rolling papers, I think) — but I love it.

(Thanks, Jason Deeble)

This new video from Katy Davis is really sweet. Katy self-produced it for her brother’s band, Bim, and did all the art herself.

I’m really digging the video for Autokratz’s “Stay the Same” directed by Laurie Thinot and animated by Gustavo Almenara. It’s an oddly entrancing mixture of infographics and illustration-like images set against a white background. The director Thinot recently signed on to Partizan Lab for commercial repping. More of Thinot’s work can be seen on her YouTube page.