POPSCREEN: Les Savy Fav

This how it probably went down: Somewhere in Brooklyn, Tim Harrington, lead singer/intellectualist of the art-rock band Les Savy Fav, is seeking new levels of post-hardcore indie innocence when he finds himself hung up on a question that has troubled philosophers since time immemorial: “What would wolves do?” Unable to work the issue out through electronically-enhanced crooning alone, Harrington sits down for a TV break (ironically, of course). “South Park” comes on, and Harrington is struck by the savage integrity of the image of an animated blue towel smoking pot. A ray of hope appears. If anyone can answer this daunting question, it’s “South Park” head animator Ryan Quincy. From this spark of genius comes the collaboration that is Les Savy Fav’s “What Would Wolves Do” music video.

In Quincy’s vision of what wolves would do, an animated wolf/bear duo of intergalactic adventurers explore a planet inhabited by pouty-mouthed, bikini-clad creaturelings who love a good party. After a night of orgiastic cartoon excess, the plot takes a sharp turn into “Pit and the Pendulum” doom and gloom, as wolf and bear narrowly escape their female captors-turned-ritualistically-sacrificing-robots. Not quite as idiosyncratic as Mr. Hankey the Christmas Poo, but bizarre enough, considering that Quincy’s working without Trey Parker and Matt Stone. The cartoon storyline does little to illuminate Les Savy Fav’s enigmatic lyrics, but compounding elusive distraction upon elusive distraction is half the fun of indie music. The absolute inscrutability of lyrics such as “Quart doesn’t burn / Rust doesn’t hum / Maybe we should blame it on the structures of the sun” is just the sort of thing that inspires hipster high school students to their deepest moments of literary analysis. Matched with the ludicrous but amusing image of a cartoon wolf playing erotic Twister in his briefs, Les Savy Fav’s new video provides hours of entertainment for indie intellectuals.

—Kirsten E. M. Slungaard