Adam Buxton muses on the difficulty of not picking a side in our polarised world in Dancing In The Middle - interpreted as a battle between different types of audio equipment by visionary animator Cyriak Harris in this very welcome return to music videos.Cyriak's distinctive style of manipulating existing material in extraordinary ways - as seen in numerous viral films and music videos for the likes of Bonobo - is all present here, as a hapless cassette-and-speaker character is caught in the crossfire between competing characters composed of analogue and digital audio gear - a war overseen by a controlling reel-to-reel tape machine.Buxton - whose debut album Buckle Up is released today - goes way back with Cyriak, the self-taught and entirely self-reliant animator who created mind-boggling exercises in surreal comedy and AfterEffects chicanery in films where he also wrote the music, and then in a number of commissioned music videos in the Noughties and Teens - all regularly featured at BUG, the Buxton-presented music video live event.This is not as intensely complicated as many of Cyriak's classic films, but it's still a considerable achievement of wrangling a mass of visual elements to serve up the idea. And it really does justify repeated viewing to appreciate the detail and storytelling - and realise that somehow Cyriak serves up a happy(ish) ending.

A lovely short film by Luxemburg-based illustrator and animator Marie Lavis for an unreleased demo of a song on Jacob Collier's album Djesse Vol 3, to celebrate the fifth anniversary of Collier's fourth album.The video for Lark In A Sky Shop investigates the complexities in this unorthodox song, where Collier delivers a spoken-word rap over drums and percusssion. Lavis's film interprets Collier's lyrics in a flow of strongly graphic black and white imagery, following the subconscious journey of an everyman struggling for freedom. Lavis's handmade (possibly hand-painted) style of animation - is an ideal accompaniment to the raw approach to the track, created in the early stages of the making of the 2020 album. Lavis says of the song and the video: "It explores the depth of tension within one’s soul and life, stretched between light and darkness, day and night, oppression and freedom, and the turbulent navigation through it all. It’s about being pressed, found, and brought into a spacious place."

Dan French has created an underground cyber-world for Chinese-Vietnamese-British rapper Jianbo's collaboration with Nix Northwest - created entirely in CGI.The video for For The Honour is a gamefied story that spirals through a surreal vignettes exploring honour and Jianbo’s conflicted experience of it, while elements of Asian identity and internal struggles are layered throughout. And with French choosing animation as a means to lock creative freedom, it amounts to an awesome achievement.Inspired by the cinematic language of Wong Kar Wai, the urban sprawl of Tokyo, and the neon tones of cyberpunk futurism, French blended dystopian motifs with real cultural undercurrents in Jianbo’s life to also comment on loyalty, sacrifice, and the ripple effects of success. And it's effectively handcrafted as the director handled every aspect of the CG animation himself - from modelling and rigging to texturing and compositing."Jianbo and I go way back," says French. "I’d been wanting to make something with him for a while and what started as a simple idea quickly evolved into a full CGI underground world."But with limited resources, he explains that he was pushed to be creative and as well as picking up new skills along the way. Lacking access to motion capture studios or suits, he embraced a DIY approach, recording iPhone footage of Jianbo dancing, then manually translating the movements into animation. He leaned into a stylised aesthetic that nods to GTA and PS2-era graphics rather than striving for photorealism."I didn’t realise how much I’d bitten off, learning how to do motion capture, rig people and model faces," he continues. "As it started coming to life, I kept pushing because having total creative freedom was a dream. I wasn’t aiming for photorealism, I actually liked the slightly off, mocap-heavy, gamey vibe - it gave GTA nostalgia. So I wanted it to stay rough around the edges to show that it was handcrafted for real by me.”The end result is a singular vision: raw and unfiltered. A music video grounded in modern culture that blurs the line between personal story and digital spectacle, designed to live entirely within the world its creators meticulously built by hand.

Amy Macdonald reunites with frequent collaborator Jackson Ducasse, for a surreal and beautiful cut-and-paste road trip.Tearing through space and time, the video for Is This What You've Been Waiting For? features a painstaking collage animation, lovingly stitched together by a fruitful collaboration between Ducasse and the talented editor/animator Shea McChrystal.Vibrant, nostalgic and absorbing, the use of traditional styles and vintage textures creates something timeless and special.