Video: North Highlands – ‘Benefits’

I love the way Brooklyn act North Highlands use repetition. Their songs are little more than handfuls of phrases, but in singer Brenda Malvina’s hands, they become incantations, love songs as hypnosis. The minimalist wordplay forces you to focus on the details — the dynamic shifts from chorus to bridge, Malvina’s melodic turns, the subtle overdubs that layer onto this song’s final minute. It’s refreshing, as is the silly, colorful video for “Benefits,” which gets immeasurably better if you imagine Beavis and Butthead making fun of it.

(Wild One is out now; the album was one of my best of October picks)