What do Eastbound And Down, Felix The Cat, Bugs Bunny, A Clockwork Orange, great white sharks, and Le Voyage Dans La Lune all have in common? They have all been repurposed in this album-length music video as exceptionally transfixing visual collages for each of the 11 tracks on Hanni El Khatib’s new blues rock record, Moonlight.
Hanni El Khatib is a talented multi instrumentalist on L.A.’s Innovative Leisure album who collaborated with the Black Keys’ Dan Auerbach on his 2013 album and has arguably adopted the leaner sounds of some of the earlier Black Keys recordings circa Magic Potion and Rubber Factory. But Moonlight is more polished than either record, allowing breathing room for backup chants on the song “Servant”, crunchy guitar hooks (look to virtually every song for this one and especially “All Black”), and crystal clear vocals that float above the instrumental sorcery. Though some songs outshine others, Moonlight is at its core a seductive rock record and the strongest of El Khatib’s efforts.
The video below is a 42-minute visual collage from filmmaker Nathan “Nacho” Cabrera that will make your eyes go from focused to dilated before the leading track, “Moonlight” comes to a close. All the interpolated visuals from classic movies and cartoons create an alluring alternate universe–like flipping through cable channels too rapidly to catch anything in particular–meant to entrap you for the entire duration. On the song “Dance Hall” (about 32 minutes in) El Khatib sings plainly, “Static on my broke TV still looks cool to me.” Totally the vibe here.
Be forewarned there are NSFW segments of the video between 5:30 and 7:30 and then between 11:00 and 13:30.
