New Video by the Tough Alliance

I've gone on too much in past posts about how much I enjoy and respect the Tough Alliance's Sincerely Yours record label. Truly, the collective is like the Factory Records for a new, 21st-century generation that, frankly, wouldn't be much impressed by the delivery of Factory's product were they to be the same company they were thirty years ago, but open their doors for the first time today.
If that makes any sense. Sincerely Yours has an almost naivety to all their releases and the fashion in which they disseminate them that's all at once endearing and curiosity-sparking as nothing ever fully becomes removed from a certain shroud of mystery.

Every notification e-mail on receives from the label begins with the bizarre catchphrase, "Dear Buoyfriend," and goes on to, very briefly, and in moderately chopping English, to describe the latest addition to the Sincerely Yours catalog (much like Factory, Sincerely Yours labels everything they produce ... from CDs to music videos to manifestos to apparel).

Sincerely Yours currently supports such wonderful acts as, obviously, the Tough Alliance, Taken By Trees, Jonas Game, the Honey Drips, Air France, and many, many more. Stockholm is a pretty damn cool city, if I may say so myself.

Anyway, the above video (which can be viewed here as well) is for the Tough Alliance's "A New Chance," and boy is it a spectacularly edited and choreographed one, especially considering the assumed budget. It fits excellently with the rest of the catalog, too ... un-alarming but melodious, hooky, atmospheric, and some sort of "X factor" that I can't quite place, but which makes everything TTA touches turn to solid gold. From the get-go, you can tell it's TTA -- ambient, beach-y, relaxed dance electronica that parallels earlier works of New Order and maybe, maybe, maybe a little bit of the Happy Mondays' drugged-out charisma.
Once you're hooked to this stuff, you're hooked for life.

the Tough Alliance - Mine Was Real