A magical medley of Monday morning music mideos!... er, videos. (Also, it's afternoon now.)

The new M. Ward video, for "Me and My Shadow" from his recent A Wasteland Companion album, tells the story of a young, Bieberesque pop lad who tries to escape from the clutches of his evil, eye-laser-shooting manager, played by Amy Sedaris. Yes, that's a quick Conan O'Brien cameo, and the video was directed by Scott Jacobson, a writer for Bob's Burgers. I like the story and the images although it feels a little truncated, like there was a bigger story intended to cram into these two-and-a-half minutes.

"Between Parentheses" is a stop-motion clip from Cars & Trains, the nom de record of Tom Filepp. It's a fairly simple but striking video, made by Otem Rellik, and it follows some animated birds on the ground and in the trees, evoking the rhythms of nature. We'll have another Cars & Trains video premiere for you in the coming weeks.

Here's one from a Portland band new to me: De La Warr, whose song "Like a Drum" includes not only drums, but cascading guitar and inventive vocal harmonies. This video shows the members of the band being, uh, redecorated by a bunch of excited kids.

Lastly, here's a clip from the audio/visual Plink Flojd collective, started by Brazilian David Quiles Guillo and including Portlander Eric Mast (E*Rock). This musical piece and its computer generated video is from Brenna Murphy, and it'll throw off your center of balance a little bit. (Notice the reference to Pink Floyd's "Echoes" in the sound of the Leslie-speaker'ed piano.) Plink Flojd present a screening this Saturday at the Hollywood Theatre as part of the upcoming THE PROJECTS experimental art and comics fest this weekend. More about that in the upcoming Mercury.