The Too Pure Singles Club returns in 2012 with a bang (or is that a rattle) with the sound of Icelandic mantra magicians Dead Skeletons. For the uninitiated, Dead Skeletons came into existence in 2008 when band member Jon Saamunder needed music for an art installation in the Reykjavik Art Museum. Enlisting the help of friends Henrik Bjornsson and Ryan Carlson Van Kriedt the trio penned the songs which would eventually become the Dead Magick album, a 72 minute, 12 song journey through space and time, life and death. “Om Mani Peme Hung” is the sound of Neu! on a meditation retreat engaging in a spiritual hypno-chant. I wouldn’t advise watching this clip under the influence as the apocalyptic dudes holding swastika shields may freak you out. Now repeat after me… Om Mani Peme Hung, Om Mani Peme Hung, Om Mani Peme Hung… Check out the Too Pure Singles Club website for more details on how to subscribe and pick up this 7″ single.

As the year slowly winds down we get reminded, we being Webcuts, of the albums we just didn’t get around to reviewing. Either because our plate was too full or because well… yawn, where does the time go? So, look, we’d like to apologise to Scottish indie-pop quartet Zoey Van Goey who released their second album Propeller Versus Wings way back in February for not expressly recommending it’s quirky brilliance and tender moods (walking the same halls as Camera Obscura and early Belle & Sebastian). “You Told The Drunks I Knew Karate” is more of the former, an adorably perfect tale of a night out gone awry now made complete with its own karate-themed video. The track is being released as a single through Chemikal Underground on November 21. A digital single that is. Not something small, plastic, and awesome. Sigh.

New Jersey outfit Real Estate’s shares their first music video from their album Days for the lead single “It’s Real”, filmed in Ridgewood, New Jersey and directed by Weird Days. Days was recorded over the course of five patient months in a remote New Paltz, NY barn-cum-studio, and is a coming of age moment for childhood friends Martin Courtney (Guitar and Vocals), Matt Mondanile (Guitar) and Alex Bleeker (Bass). A gorgeous suite of guitar-pop songs, Days is a testament to the sonic formula developed on their 2009 self-titled debut album, heralding the arrival of a new, genuine and enduring group of voices in American independent music. Days sees the band tighten and refine their brand of timeless, melodic and genuine music – consolidating the breezy sketches of their earlier work into considered, graceful pop songs.

Given the dream-like quality of the music and the wide scope of the title for visual artists to work with, Okkervil River have unsurprisingly released a second video for the song “Your Past Life As A Blast” taken from I Am Very Far. How do you capture a memory? This is the main question director Isaac Ravishankara attempted to answer with his video. He explains, “My initial inspiration came from some of William Faulkner’s novels, especially The Sound and the Fury, where the same story is told from four unique perspectives. Also, I had been reading a lot about how the brain processes time, and also thinking a lot about meaning in juxtaposed images.”

The narrative is straightforward: a boy and a girl sneak away to a lake, jump in the water, swim as far as they can, and then lead the rest of their lives. The concept Ravishankara created out of this storyline results in an expressionistic piece that illustrates the subjective perspective of two memories of the same event. Over the course of months the video changed & grew through the editing process eventually bringing to the fore an abstract quality that mimics actual memory.

The small crew filmed with actors Benedict Mazurek and Margaret Miller upstate in New Paltz, NY. “We were out in the woods for 2 days and the night in-between,” says Ravishankara, “The woods were filled with nature, which often was literally on top of us. Mostly snakes. Ben caught one, actually, on Day 1. But the hardest part of the shoot, by far, were all of the water scenes. We spent hours in the lake and it was awfully cold. By the end of the day, Ben and Margaret and I were so cold, our shivers had turned to full-on uncontrollable shaking, which Kevin (Haden, DP) thankfully captured. That last shot in the video is my favorite shot I have in anything I’ve ever made.” He adds, “I hope you enjoy the video, and I hope it moves you, even if just a little bit.”

Okkervil River will be on tour in Europe through the end of November. Dates are listed below.

London-based swoonsome twosome Summer Camp have just released the first proper single “Better Off Without You” from their forthcoming debut album Welcome To Condale (don’t look for it on a map, it doesn’t exist). There are those amongst us no doubt chowing down on Elizabeth’s brownies or Jeremy’s um, book collection, from participating in their Pledgemusic fundraising campaign. As you can see, your money has been put to good use in this no-expense-spared, home-shot video clip. “Better Off Without You” shows Summer Camp doing what they do best, making bright n’ cranky little pop songs in the “I want you. Nope, changed my mind” vein, which’ll make Welcome To Condale all that more a trick-or-treat surprise when it’s released on October 31.

Okkervil River‘s Will Sheff has taken the literal approach while assembling a video for the track “Your Past Life As A Blast” by using home movies of the Sheff family shot by his father. Sheff said about the clip — “Like many kids of the late 70s and early 80s, my dad was often hovering around with a Super 8 camera, filming my mom and me and – as time passed – my younger brother and sister. I remember him projecting these movies on a bare wall and, eventually, the movies becoming as much a part of my memory as the original events he had filmed. I thought it would be cool to use actual footage of those memories in the video itself, to make a really personal kind of rock video”. Soon to be traversing the globe taking in shows in Australia and Spain throughout October and November, the band will be rounding out a busy year touring I Am Very Far with a final batch of shows in UK and Ireland, culminating in their largest London show to date at Koko on the 22nd.

It’s a rich Richie-remembering, good times documenting, trip down memory lane for Manic Street Preachers with their video for their cover of The The’s “This Is The Day”, taken from the forthcoming complete singles collection, the wryly titled National Treasures. It’s been a good long while since Manic Street Preachers last released a cover version as an A-side (anyone? anyone? It was “Suicide Is Painless” back in 1992), but they seem to have handled “This Is The Day” with the same wistful nostalgia as the original. Due for release on October 31, National Treasures collects all 37 of the Manics previous single releases from the last 21 years and 10 studio albums (from “Motown Junk” to “This Is The Day”), spread across 2CDs and for the fanatically inclined, one motherfucker of a boxset. To celebrate this album’s release, the band are to play a very special one-off stadium show at the O2 in London this Christmas where they will perform all 37 songs in full. It’s tempting. Very tempting.

Much-loved upon release earlier this year was the ninth album by sax employing, 80′s referencing eccentric/romantic Dan Bejar aka Destroyer entitled Kaputt. If his work as Destroyer draws a blank (and for shame, for shame), you may well know him as a member of fellow Canadian indie-rock outfit, The New Pornographers (Bejar’s songs being the ones that are just a little too out there to be A.C. Newman’s). Kaputt still resides in the upper reaches of our top albums of 2011, and so too one of our favourite tracks, the spacious hum of “Savage Night At The Opera”, which receives a motorcycle sight-seeing ride through the streets of Vancouver video to accompany it, and yes, it actually features (shock horror) Dan Bejar himself. Kaputt is clearly out now, and we advise you to seek out the European (Dead Oceans) version which has an extra 20 minutes of music. Webcuts, always looking out for ya!