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Felix Cartal mashes up electronic music styles in his remix work for notables such as MSTRKRFT and Ashlee Simpson, as well as on his debut album Popular Music. So, it’s quite fitting that video director Ace Norton took a “mash-up” approach to the video for “Volcano”. Riffing off an old Dan Rather newscast about the Mount St. Helen’s eruption, Norton superimposes a singing mouth featuring the vocals of Johnny Whitney from the Blood Brothers over Rather’s talking head.
“As a kid, my parents would put on the CBS Evening News every night while we ate dinner,” says Norton. “When they fired Dan Rather, I didn’t realize how comforting his voice was until it wasn’t there anymore. With all this coverage about the volcano in Iceland, it only seemed right to give the man one last broadcast, and make it about the biggest news story of all time—the impending apocalypse. This video is Dante’s Peak, meets Ron Burgandy, meets Poltergeist.” Ace Norton has a lengthy list of credits to his name, with turns behind the camera for the likes of LCD Soundsystem, Death Cab for Cutie, She and Him and many more. “Volcano” is a banging, anthemesque tune with shades of distortion moving amongst strong beats. It’s house, techno and dance-pop all in one.
