Who knows why these things happen, but I was sitting here at my desk in Cincinnati, Ohio at the end of a long day of typing/correcting when the thought crossed my mind, "I wonder if there are any Komeda videos up at YouTube?"I am not being facetious. It really happened that way. I have moments like this.
I first became aware of Komeda about ten years ago (gad... has it really been that long?), when I was chasing down groups whose sound was compared to Stereolab, with whom I was newly enamored at the time, and who weren't releasing nearly enough new music to sate me. When I saw the name Komeda, I knew these characters had to be up to something good. They're a Swedish pop or retropop group who took their name from Krzysztof Komeda, the remarkable Polish jazz musician-composer who wrote the music for Roman Polanski's films through ROSEMARY'S BABY, until his early death in 1969. ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY described their sound as "ABBA meets Nico and goes to a new wave film festival," which isn't a bad description. I think they sound like 21st century AM radio might sound if it had followed a natural evolutionary course from the heyday of the 1960s and hadn't devolved into ever-descending circles of Hell involving talk radio and jailbait dancers who get songs in the Top 10 by flaunting their bellybuttons on MTV. Komeda have released four albums so far; I have two of them which I like very much, and apparently I need two. You can read more about them and their albums here.
For reasons I can't explain, a curiosity struck me tonight about Komeda -- very belatedly, it would seem -- that made me wonder what kind of videos they might make. Here's where things get weird: When I looked them up on YouTube, I discovered that their record label MintyFresh Records had posted a few of Komeda's videos only yesterday. Talk about serendipity! So I thought I would share some links with you.
This video, for "Blossom," is one of the most impressively stylized and executed music videos I've ever seen: think Karel Zeman and YELLOW SUBMARINE crossed with Steve Gerber and an irresistible beat.
Also impressive is this colorful video for the tuneful "Cul De Sac" (another Polanski reference).
If you have time to only check out one Komeda video today, go directly to this mind-meltingly wonderful illustration of their breakthrough song, "It's Allright, Baby." I don't know if this piece is authorized or not (it's not a Minty Fresh posting), but it's a brilliant and inspired prank, if it isn't. Particularly recommended to the Eurohorror cultists among you.
Once you've enjoyed that, you can chase it with what is more surely an authorized video for the same song, in that it actually features the band. Like their videos, it's enticing, unusual, bracing, and above all intelligent. Brain food from Komeda's Swedish soul kitchen.
I don't know much about Komeda really, and I fear I'm a bit behind the times with them and need to catch up. But after viewing these videos, I have a sense of distant friends, a feeling that the members of this terrific band and I are connected, under the skin, by the things we both love, a shared aesthetic. This message was smuggled into my knowing from the get-go by their chosen name, and their videos, now that I've seen them, reinforce that impression. They haven't issued an album since 2003; their website hasn't been updated since August of last year -- which makes the weirdness of this serendipity and the cutting edge I feel from these years-old videos all the more mystifying. I hope Komeda are still making music because they seem to me a viable cure for much of the blandness and tacky excess assailing what we laughingly call our culture today. Nothing's wrong with our culture that can't be cured by inspiring more people to step up to a higher standard of taste and common sense. You can find it in Komeda.
