"What Kind Of Man" and "How Big How Blue" by Florence + The Machine

Florence + The Machine have released a new album called "How Big How Blue How Beautiful" and not one but TWO incredible, shattering videos to go along with the tracks "What Kind Of Man" and "How Big How Blue."

The video for "What Kind Of Man" is absolutely mesmerizing and so intense, full of metaphor and told through dream logic. Not that the deeply psychological narrative is dream-like since nothing technically surreal happens...rather I mean that it is told in the manner in which our dreams speak to us: through imagery and pictures. This is one of those amazing artistic statements that are coherent in the subconscious. In the video, we have different time periods and several locations that seem to bleed into one, references to storms, disasters, and suffering, and visual cues of a kind of kaleidoscopic memory review on the part of our heroine with a group of men standing in for possibly one or more past or current relationships. It is immediate, visceral, and truly stunning. Watch it a few times to let it sink in...

And because there is the briefest shot of Florence's bare breasts, I am not embedding the video here like I normally would, lest an overzealous conservative stumble upon it, report me to Blogger and have me shut down. And I'd rather not put an "Adult Content Warning" on my blog since that is a bit limiting and is not emblematic of "Oh, By The Way" which I would like to keep open to as many visitors as possible. To watch the video, click on any of the below photos from the video to go right to Florence + The Machine's VEVO channel on Youtube, or use the link at the bottom.

And as if that wasn't enough exquisite Jungian imagery, here is the equally mind-boggling "How Big How Blue." With simple yet utterly profound lyrics and a majestic horn section that sounds like the beginning--or end--of our universe, this brief song speaks to concepts that are beyond words. Speaking of dream logic, this video recalls for me a dream I had when I was 17 or 18 where I walked into a cave to find an ominous, robed and hooded figure but I overcame what fear I might have had to discover that it was me under the robe. I walked to myself and we embraced, like Florence and her own self here... it is a powerful, poignant, moving--and archetypal--idea. And we see movements in the kinetic vocabulary here that are identical to movements we saw in "What Kind Of Man." In these films, Florence Welch is saying something cosmic in size and just as important...

"What Kind Of Man" video:
http://youtu.be/XgeKHTcufLY

http://florenceandthemachine.net/