James Slater's latest video for Leeds post-punk outfit Yard Act puts a modern twist on the 'white syc' pop video trope - and on the wacky world of colourful Northern characters that populate the band's songs.

While performing in that classic performance video set-up from the late '70s and early 80s, Yard Act's frontman James Smith delivers acerbic lyrics to the accompaniment of lettuce-selling orphan girl dancers. Slater updates the white syc theme with VFX, including wipes to transition between shots and radically alter perspective - and this disembodied space allows the whole band to also create new characters in the Yard Act world. 

As in Slater's previous videos for Yard Act, Smith again undergoes an eerily convincing transformation, this time as a grinning salesman, staring manically into the camera lens and exhorting us to 'take the money', as he throws around fake cash.     

"The song reminded me of Crosseyed and Painless by Talking Heads, which happens to be one of my favourite vids," says Slater. "So it's kind of a homage to those bold and simple white syc videos, but with dancing orphan lettuce farmers instead of the Electric Boogaloos.

"The lead dancer Kayleigh actually appears in the first video I did for Yard Act for The Overload - we actually spotted her dancing behind a stall of a carboot whilst on a recce - and the Golden Rover makes a reappearance too. It's been nice expanding the Yard Act universe in this way."