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Music

PREMIERE: Media Jeweler - "Passport Invalid"

Here's some mathy art-pop form So-Cal. As for those adventuring blow up pool toys? They're gonna get it.

Media Jeweler are a Santa Ana rock quartet who specialize in a brand of frantic yet carefully-honed art rock. From controlled, pin-prick guitar lines that turn into raucous explosions of feedback, to basslines that propel a song forward until they're suddenly and drastically detained, the band are constantly changing their pace. They'll lurch forward with one melody until it runs face first into another, and they'll whisper a verse before bellowing a chorus.

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The mercurial element to Media Jeweler's music—the back and forth, up and down, the aversion to settling in one rhythm or soundscape—feels particularly resonant in these last few days of summer when the lingering heat begins to make us stir crazy. The quartet explore the same kind of unbudging listlessness evoked by the hot stillness in their new video for "Passport Invalid"—premiering below and directed by Anthony Lucido—one of the several travel-referencing tracks from their upcoming debut $99 R/T Hawaii. It's the kind of implacable boredom that might inspire an angry child to torture his inflatable toys, which is exactly what the video depicts.

Three blow-up figures—a dour MMA fighter, a bemused penguin, and a very upset clown—spend a summer day trying to evade their inexplicably violent owner, a young boy who has apparently resorted to destroying his helpless toys out of boredom. Watch the video below to find out the fate of the boy's toys and if the this kid's raging boredom or the clown's fight or flight response prevails.

Media Jeweler Tour Dates

9/03 - Santa Ana, CA @ Beatnik Bandito w/ Canyons, Rufrano, Slow Rose

9/04 - Los Angeles, CA @ Pehrspace w/ Pregnant, Bloody Death Skull, Madame Headdress

9/05 - Oakland @ Sgraffito Gallery w/ Pregnant, 1988, Laughters

9/06 - Davis, CA @ Third Space Arts w/ Pregnant, Warm Tape, Wodewose

9/07 - Eugene, OR @ House Show (1415 Mill Alley) w/ VCR, Naked Giants

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9/08 - Seattle, WA @ Everyday Music Capitol Hill Instore (5PM)

9/08 - Seattle, WA @ Black Lodge w/ Hungry Cloud Darkening, Nightmom, Detlef

9/11 - Portland, OR @ Turn Turn Turn w/ WL, Ointment, Branchwalker

9/12 - Oakland, CA @ Speakeasy w/ Religious Girls, Never Young

9/13 - Upland, CA @ The Palisades w/ Fugue, Light Thieves

9/25 - Los Angeles, CA - Non Plus Ultra w/ Traps, PS, Prissy Whip, French Vanilla

10/03 - Long Beach, CA - MADE w/ Yonatan Gat, Rudy de Anda, Forest of Tongue, Bobby Blunders

10/24 - Tijuana, MX - House Show w/ Traps, PS, Sociedad Secreta Del Vacio

11/20 - New York, NY - Elvis Guesthouse

11/21 - Brooklyn, NY - TBA

Media Jeweler's LP $99 R/T Hawaii is out on 9.18 via Fire Talk Records.