Prepare to pop your consciousness in a psychedelic tumble dryer and kiss goodbye to any shred of sanity you may have been saving for the weekend. The new video from Austin-based art, funk-rock band Bourgeois Mystics for their riotous cover of the 1960s Bollywood classic, “Jaan Pehechan Ho”, sees your “bonkers” and raises you “stark raving”.
Opening like a psychedelic Monty Python sketch directed by Ben Wheatley, the video is a feast of mind-bending imagery; like the best cheese dream you’ve never had. The idea behind it is that many hundreds of years in the future, after the fall of civilization as we know it, an archeologist stumbles upon an ancient and archaic video hosting site known as YouTube. He decides to splice the disparate clips together into an eclectic collage that, as one might expect, makes absolutely no sense at all.
Featuring, amongst other things, a bizarre cookery show watched by a live studio audience made up of waifs and strays from the Cantina Bar, a Western featuring Louis XVI turning into an ass-kicking assassin, and the singer surfing on a keyboard into a space portal, this video has something for anyone interested in buying a single ticket for a ferry ride to Nutsville.
Appropriately, the band give the original song an eccentric makeover as it moves from ska to soft jazz and black metal. It’s the perfect accompaniment for a video which features a man with a slugs head petting a dog and a stoned baboon losing his mind with jealousy. It’s a party where everyone is invited no matter what species they might be, and it’s all the better for it. Long live the Bourgeois Mystics.