The Dodos, “Companions” (video here)

“Companions” is to the San Francisco-based duo The Dodos’ album No Closer what “Day in the Life” was to Sergeant Pepper—a wandering experimental piece where other bands might insist on slotting something more conventionally climactic. The song is gentle, moody and fraught with the danger of open spaces or open minds.

This new video accompaniment to the expansive five-minute “Companions” sells the song without detracting from it, telling its own harsh cinematic film noir story without literalizing the lyrics. Most of it is about driving on a long winding road, that ever-popular method of visualizing ambient or repetitive soundscapes. Ulimately it turns the very song title “Companions” on its head, eroding a sense of friendship and trust just as the song challenges its own gentleness.