Fred De Pontcharra journeys to Bangkok to create this cinematic promo for Usky. The video for Donatello follows the artist across several 'day-in-the-life' vignettes, blending gritty portraiture with snapshots of his routine. The bright lights of the city contrast against the grimy boxing rings and backstreets he finds himself in, and a focus on frenetic camera moves and bold transitions creates a hallucinatory, surreal aesthetic. A brilliant complement to the enigmatic soundscapes of the track, and a fresh perspective on the Thai cityscapes.

Two music genres battle for supremacy in Sau Ali's stylish yet gritty promo for Jords and Lil Sykes' Drill Vs Grime. The narrative follows the artists as they enter an abstract simulation, in which the two genres go head-to-head in a high-energy showdown.Sau Ali recreates a street environment, in which both types of music emerged, in a studio environment - a rather brilliant move. It was also shot by DoP Henry Gill on black and white 16mm film - Kodak Double-x 7222 - that adds another layer of texture to the visual. "The track is militant and explosive. I wanted to complement that by exploring the iconography of the two genres," says Sau Ali. "The ‘Street Monolith’ (concrete wall) that Jords & Lil Sykes stand either side of; the huge speaker cone that pulsates above it; and the severed island street scenes... they all speak to these British genres’ cultural kinship and shared DNA."I wanted to create an experience that emphasised the retrospective theme but leaned towards a surreal tone to match the abstract narrative. DoP Henry Gill bought that to life. Shooting on 16mm and heading down a moody and nocturnal direction that I wanted the world to exist in."Production designer Jade Adeyemi essentially created the entire world. I wanted everything to look like we’d lifted it from real places. Jade understood and accomplished that beautifully."I worked closely on this concept with talented VFX artist Lee Delves before the job was even commissioned. We wanted to achieve an exaggerated visual that still maintained its authenticity. The ‘Genre Morphing’ shot (Jords & Lil Sykes standing on either side of the street monolith) was intended to be achieved ‘in camera’ but budget limitations meant Lee was tasked with creating the shot in post - which actually accomplished the otherworldly sentiment that I was looking for, and is an example of how limitations can lead to great creative solutions in a music video."

Hora Bolz directs an impressive music film for El Perro, consisting of visuals for the tracks Call Me When You're Home and Let Me Think That Again.Filmed in southern Spain, the concept is a surrealist twist to the classic Sword Of Damocles story: a couple of outlaws whose life is controlled by destiny and anxiety have to make a decision, to help them understand the true definition of their relationship."The idea for this came hand-in-hand with the location," explains Bolz. "It was really important for me to create a world that felt realistic enough so the surreal elements in it felt authentic. Like when you wake up from a dream, and you need to take a moment to understand what’s going on."For me, the best part when watching a movie - or any art piece - is the interpretation. That’s why I wanted this music video to be like a riddle. It had to be fun for you to decipher, and for me to see what you’ve found."DoP Benjamin Cotgrove adds that the video was shot in extremely testing conditions. "We ended up shooting at the height of summer during 40 degree celsius heat - at times the sun was pretty unbearable," he says. "I knew shooting on 16mm the stock wouldn’t miss a beat and even with our schedule forcing us to shoot when the sun was high noon, film helped to balance the crude, raw sun on the face of our cast."We had an incredible local crew who were not unfamiliar with these conditions and knew exactly how to support us through this: keep a cooler bag ready for the film."

Noel Paul directs a suitably uncanny promo for Baxter Dury - the first of a series of videos ffor the lugubrious singer-songwriter.The video for Aylesbury Boy is a feverish, super-vibrant trip into Dury's subconscious. In the song, he is recounting moments from his own youth; in Paul's nightmarish approximation, he's terrorised by a devil, some goblins and a bunch of school kids. With cinematography by Ramzi Hibri, this has an otherworldly atmosphere, in the vein of Paul's UKMVA-winning video for Black Midi's Sugar/Tzu. Abstract imagery clashes head-on with a soft, almost romantic aesthetic, which creates an uncomfortabl yet riveting atmosphere, which seems to reflect a certain personal version of Hell.“Wes Anderson, The Shining, Jabberwocky... Noel has made something so intuitive and beyond my expectations," says Baxter Dury of the video for Aylesbury Boy. "It reminds me of how inventive and creative video making used to be and still can be.”

The Director's Cut of Marc Oller's video for Arlo Parks' Weightless arrives, and adds weight to the symbolism around a story of a couple falling out of love.Oller employs powerful visual metaphors to tell the tale, which are given free rein in this version: Arlo in a car with no driver, a house breaking apart, cars crashing, and perhaps most powerfully of all, a wild horse having escaped from its captor, running free in the city.Within these scenes, Parks herself comes across strongly, performing the song which is the first release from her forthcoming album, My Soft Machine - the anticipated follow-up to her Brit and Mercury Prize-winning debut Collapsed In Sunbeams.Shot in Serbia last December, Oller says that ‘’we followed the brief of how a lover gets tethered to the idea of someone, either to how good it felt at the beginning or how close things are to looking up, whilst also wanting to present Arlo in a way that her fans had not seen before." He adds that this presented various challenges on the shoot, particularly due to bad weather affecting the production."We had to recreate the exact same room we were shooting in an apartment, then wreck it with a bulldozer," he says. "The construction team was outstanding."So was the horse, called Asa - who is a magnificent presence in the video, captured wonderfully by DoP Zach Spiger and his team. "Asa was a great actress - we all fell in love with her and she actually made our lives easy," says Oller. "Unfortunately, it was raining heavily and the shoot was constantly interrupted by the storm. This tightened our schedule and we had to sacrifice many shots that we had planned on shooting." Shot on film, which also presented challenges in terms of finding the right kit for "an old school kind of shoot", Oller adds that he was supported by both familiar and new collaborators to achieve his goals."They were all amazingly talented and invested in the project," he declares. "Zack Spiger is an old collaborator - we shot a short film back in the day when I lived in Tokyo; Vicki Viñas is one of my longest time collaborators and she’s an outstanding art director and has the best taste; Alberto Ojeda is one of the best steadicam operators in Spain; and Ana Cano is my oldest collaborator and my ‘go-to’ for hair and makeup."And I loved working with our new Head of Music Videos at CANADA, Callum Harrison, who always challenged me to keep pushing the boundaries of creativity and was a great support."

Stephen Agnew directs a curiously offbeat promo for Arborist. The video for Matisse sees the artist perform in an industrial location, whilst the making-of the video is referenced and interpolated right back onto screen. It takes a bit of wrapping your head round the concept to understand it, but in some ways, that's the beauty of the video. Confused yet? Let director Stephen Agnew explain... "Interpolating an interpolation before interpolating that interpolation," says Agnew. "My jumping-off point for this video is Lars von Trier's film The 5 Obstructions, itself a film that interpolates Jørgen Leth’s Perfect Human."I thought it would be fun to use this as a device to literally frame and interpolate the works of art and artists Mark mentions in the song, including but not limited to an inordinate amount of screen time dedicated to a urinal."After we set this premise we extrapolated it, inverting and slowing the footage while referencing ourselves making the video, via a Gondry-inspired camera setup before FINALLY revealing the artifice of the whole project."A sort of snake eating its own tail. But a fun snake made of cheap wood, cardboard modern art, cellophane and a LOT of favours."