Words by Jesse Serwer
Acmatic are nothing like any band you’ve heard from the Caribbean before. The seven-piece outfit from Kingston has a member/mascot who wears a paper plate on his face, and they make rap songs and dark, new-wave, Joy Division/Depeche Mode-type stuff, sometimes both at that time. They might just be Jamaica’s Odd Future, and its MGMT–or maybe its N.E.R.D.
After setting forth a distinctive aesthetic vision last year with their first video, for “The Power,” they’ve come with an equally adventurous followup in “Silver Nimbus,” an anthemic, synthesizer-driven punk rock tune about a stolen car from their debut album, Sundial. The youthful group recruited students from Kingston’s Edna Manley Art School to direct and produce the B movie-inspired clip, which culminates with vocalist King Lopo doling out beatdowns to his bandmates in a sleazy bar. The Fader, Vice and the hipster media corps are sure to be on Acmatic’s jock soon enough (Diplo has already given them his co-sign, in the webisode we shot with him in Jamaica) but you can keep track of all their moves right here. Watch “Silver Nimbus” below, then hit the jump for a highlight from a series of recent webisodes on their Youtube page: what at first appears to be a skateboarding tips video soon takes a turn to the left.