Reel Dealer

MK12 Does Hot Hot Heat

Words: Sandy Hunter

"No, Not Now," the latest video for Hot Hot Heat, was conceived and directed by everyone's favorite Kansas City design collective, MK12, and it wears the company's trademark style like a furry bunny suit.

The animated video follows a sexy heroine as she penetrates the depths of the Barely Regal amusement park, a space filled not just with exciting rides and carnies, but an evil disembodied brain that pursues its evil ends through a legion of goons dressed as rabbits (their lieutenant, meanwhile, has a bear suit). The vinyl clad heroine blurs into action and floors the hapless goons standing between herself and her goal, the park's creepy founder. Navigating the smooth contours of MK12's kinetic park, her storyline transitions to animated band performance scenes, with abstract neon lights, shapes and patterns helping to maintain the flow back and forth to the video's narrative.

In a fine adoption of comic book narrative flow, the heroine evades her initial opponents and removes the brain from its lair. The bear and bunny baddies pursue her along a roller coaster, but as one would expect, she eludes them long enough to make it to a suitably stylized rocket plane that offers the perfect escape route. A pleasing light pastel palette, underscored by pulsing simulated refractions and excellent green screen work (shot on MK12's own Kansas City stage), completes this solid second single from Hot Hot Heat's Sub Pop LP Make Up at the Breakdown.