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Live Review: Slum Sociable 'All Night' (Official Video)

8 October 2015 | 7:47 pm | Katie Rowley

Melbourne duo SLUM SOCIABLE are living up to their city’s reputation for producing all things artsy and stylish with the new video for their single.

Melbourne duo SLUM SOCIABLE are living up to their city’s reputation for producing all things artsy and stylish with the new video for their single ‘All Night’, a soft visual exploration of the uncanny.

The guys have already released two singles, rustled up a lot of noise ahead of their showcase set at CMJ in New York later this month and just released their 7-track EP TQ.

We first heard ‘Anyway’ from the EP back in January, which set the tone for how the pair intended to continue; their more recent single ‘Paradigm’ has already been received to warm reviews, and ‘All Night’ builds on these dark and urgent first samples with similar languid rhythms and a beautifully haunting sample hook that the eerie video plays upon.

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In the video we meet a middle-aged suburban family man with a late night secret. A distraught wife finds her husbands tapes, but get your mind out of the gutter because it’s not what you’re thinking. We watch with her as he practises his line dancing moves on the tape, and though we’re humoured by the husband’s entertaining dance moves on stage that evening, the camera flits back to show the horror and embarrassment that is taking hold at the family house.

Amidst the perfectly symmetrical prop placements and carefully executed dance sequences, there are younger characters cleverly entwined into the sets. They sip drinks at the bar or huddle around dimly lit cabaret tables, darting looks directly down the lens as if they know you’re watching. They’re kids at a bar just like you or I and act as a vehicle to bring the familiar into the unfamiliar, or vice versa, which if I remember correctly from my high school English lessons is the very definition of the uncanny.

The guy who’d been propping up the bar at the beginning, ends the video with a slow and almost sarcastic clap for the husband’s performance which breaks the silence, and the allegorical fourth wall, so that the mesmerising illusion is pierced. You’re brought back to reality to find yourself sitting in front of your laptop screen thinking, what just happened?

‘All Night’ is another example of Slum Sociable’s big, dreamy sound. The beautiful but unnerving video is almost too much to handle, and leaves you feeling shaken and a little stirred.

Words by Katie Rowley

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