While petty rivalries over sport, tourism and funny accents may rage between Australia and New Zealand, the two countries have always wholly embraced their respective music scenes. Our mates to the east kill it with every genre they touch, and popping across the sea for a quick tour has always been an attractive notion for both parties.
Kiwi collective Earth Tiger have been thrashing it locally for years with their electronically geared, flashy and catchy hip-hop. Dynamic, sleek and commanding like their namesake, they’re taking their game to the next level with today’s release of a film clip for Slide To The Left.
So catchy it should be illegal, Slide To The Left from Earth Tiger embodies a fresh take on festival friendly, naughty hip hop.
Any dance floor anthem worth it’s while needs an instruction for hungry partygoers and Slide To The Left delivers in spades with it’s catchy chorus hook. The repeated command echoes club-ready bangers of the past from the greatest hip-hop magicians of the naughties.
The beat hooks you in, the verse is addicting and the chorus is an order. You’ll be helpless to obey.
The percussion similarly harks back to rap’s golden age, a simple but Herculean beat layered underneath a robust clap driving the track forward with the momentum of a semitrailer. Fills between these lines are easygoing but rambunctious, punctuation between the main attractions of Slide To The Left.
The video, made possible by New Zealand’s government initiative NZ on Air, is a slick visual feast. It follow a mysterious robot as he journeys through a neon city, meeting fans and mysterious women along the way.
It takes the band international, shot entirely on location in Tokyo, Kamakura and Osaka. It’s not the first clip to utilise the futuristic beauty of Japan’s metropolises as an undeniable vibe capital, but recent memory can’t dig up a clip with something as fucking sick as Earth Tiger’s bionic protagonist.
Our robotic compatriot strutting his stuff down main street looks like it’s straight out of a movie, the costume is amazing and it’s no wonder onlookers were stopping the actor for photo-ops.
It’s production value is high-end and professionalism shines through the entire clip. Just like their approach to music making, Earth Tiger’s attention to detail and dedication to the crafting of their video takes a front seat. If you’re going to do something, do it right.
Slide To The Left is taken from Earth Tiger’s 2016 offering Holiday. Listen to the whole release below:
In the lead up to Slide To The Left dropping, Earth Tiger have been releasing a comic series based upon their time at New Zealand’s Baydream Festival with fellow musos Yelawolf, Sticky Fingers and DJ Paul from Three Six Mafia.
If you want some insight into just how our unnamed robot made it to that empty beach in Japan, check out the series by heading across to Earth Tiger’s Facebook page.
