Kindness: Artist You Should Know

A music collector’s life is a spectacular series of victories great and small, unexpected wins and an infinite series of ones that got away.

Although the track and video have been out since late last year, this lovely little gem by UK producer, Adam Bainbridge (a.k.a. Kindness) had almost slipped through the Cotto checkpoint without proper registration. But, luckily over the weekend, thanks to good coffee and a high speed internet connection, I snagged this slippery punk red handed…or blue handed as the case may be.

Sorry to be clever, I’m just trying to keep up with video director Ben Fries’ (Deadhorse Films) excellent clip for Kindness‘ (Phillipe Zdar produced) single “Cyan.” The track is a rigorous wonder of current themes, merging French and Italian disco shuffle, with a gauzy (ahem) chillwave throb, but the cherry on top is the uncanny Arthur Russell delivery of the vocals. It would sound calculated if it weren’t so unbeliveably enchanting. The video has a Bainbridge ambling throughout New York City, happening to walk in front of storefronts and signs that coincide with the lyrics. It’s a fairly simple concept, but I imagine not the easiest thing to execute in the City. To hint at it, at a certain point, Fries takes us behind the scenes so to speak to get an idea of what it entailed.

It’s a brilliant video for a brilliant song and hopefully a teaser for what we can expect from Kindness in terms of a full length release at some point in 2012.