Playlist: Dylan Hayes

What’s the best music video you’ve seen recently and why?

Justice - Generator, directed by Léa Ceheivi, it’s a 21st century continuation of Chris Cunningham’s video for Bjork - All is Full of Love. 

Nihilistic love, voyeurism and a velvet draped sofa, what’s not to love?

What’s the first music video you remember being impressed by?

I’m not sure if impressed is the right word but David Bowie - Boys Keep Swinging. There was a combination of factors that caused a visual tattoo: Bowie’s shuffling feet, the suit, performance donned with burning cigarette, the smearing of the lipstick and the older character and her stare at the end. 

When I was younger, I’m talking seven or eight, I didn’t know Bowie played the women, which made the video even stranger in a way. 

And what’s your all-time favourite music video?

George Harrison - Crackerbox Palace, partly for how objectively bad it should be but ends up working much in the same way a bad-trip is still one of the best trips. It's George’s glassy eyed stare, awkward spaghetti hands, and how he’s looking like he’s having a simultaneously great day, but also a tedious one. The edit is suitably lax to not pass today’s hoops, directed by Eric Idle, multiple outfit changes, and also featuring a Spike Lee-esque dolly.

Call me macabre but the location of the video being Harrison’s home where he was later stabbed adds something to it. The video was shot four years before John’s death and 23 years before his close shave with death. There’s a sense of foreboding in the vampire character and uncanny gnomes.

What other directors/artists do you look to for inspiration?

David Hockney, Miles Davis, Edvard Munch, Andrea Arnold, William Boyd, David Cronenberg, Annie Clark, Paul Auster, Colin Wilson, Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan, Serge Gainsbourg, Jane Birkin, Tom Waits, Leonard Cohen, David Byrne, Nan Goldin, Tim Buckley, Billy Wilder, Michelangelo Antonioni, Yasujiro Ozu, Leos Carax, Marlene Dietrich, Ingmar Bergman, Michael Haneke, Jan Svankmajer, Lynne Ramsay, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Andrei Tarkovsky, Stanley Kubrick, Satyajit Ray, Agnes Varda, Fyodor Dostovesky, Louise Bourgeois, Käthe Kollwitz, Sam Shepard, Laurie Anderson, Hermann Hesse, David Lynch, Andy Warhol, Krzysztof Kieślowski, Wim Wenders, Charlie Chaplin, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Willa Cather, Henry Miller, Iain Banks, Christopher Isherwood, Paul McCartney, Albert Camus, Milan Kundera, José Saramago, Egon Schiele, Marcel Duchamp, Lucian Freud, Frank Auerbach, Michel Houllebecq.

What are you listening to at the moment?

Catherine Graindorge’s new album, Songs for the Dread. John Lee Hooker’s Travelin’. Brook Benton’s Brook Benton Today. It’s a bit of a mix.

What’s your favourite bit of tech, whether for professional or personal use?

A Bush 1980s alarm clock. I use it instead of my phone so the first thing I do when I look up is stare at the ceiling rather than my phone. The clock’s radio can only be tuned to one radio station and it’s a 24 hour prayer call.

What artist(s) would you most like to work with and why?

Charlotte Gainsbourg for her voice, her music, her taste, her style, and her gentle charisma.