Sleater-Kinney - Jumpers

SEP 22 2005 · 12:00

Sleater-Kinney - Jumpers (2005) Director: Matt McCormick Era: Post-Riot Grrrl Indie Rock Apex (2005) - Mid-2000s Sub Pop alternative rock era, bridging punk feminist origins with arena-inflected noise rock at peak critical recognition High. This video is a rare convergence of a critically acclaimed indie rock band at their commercial and artistic peak with a distinguished experimental filmmaker from the same regional scene. The thematic unity between visual concept and song content, the deliberate aesthetic restraint against mid-2000s production norms, and its status as a Sub Pop-era artifact make it a Tier 1 preservation priority for studies of indie rock visual culture, feminist punk, and experimental film crossover. Context: Released May 24, 2005 on Sub Pop Records as the second single from The Woods, Sleater-Kinney's seventh and final studio album before their 2006 hiatus, 'Jumpers' arrived at the apex of the band's critical standing. The Woods was produced by Dave Fridmann (known for Flaming Lips records) and recorded largely live in studio, marking a deliberate shift toward hard rock and noise-rock sonics. The album reached #80 on the Billboard Top 200 and #2 on the Independent Albums chart, and placed #4 in the Village Voice Pazz & Jop poll for 2005. The video's visual language, institutional alienation, escapist fantasy, handmade transcendence, maps onto the song's themes and reflects a broader mid-2000s indie rock visual vocabulary of lo-fi sincerity and DIY craft over commercial sheen. Director notes: Directed for Sub Pop Records, 2005, in conjunction with the release of Sleater-Kinney's album The Woods. Listed on McCormick's official filmography at mattmccormick.art as 'Sleater-Kinney; Jumpers Music Video, Sub Pop, 2005.' The video was also edited by Chris Jones of Downstream (per Ad Age, October 2005), and produced under McCormick's Food Chain Films banner. The concept involves a narrative thread of a corporate office worker constructing wings from plastic-windowed envelopes and escaping via rooftop flight, intercut with band performance footage staged against hanging strips of the same envelope material, a visual conceit that unifies the narrative and performance worlds. The video was released on May 24, 2005, alongside the album. It appears on McCormick's Vimeo channel (vimeo.com/633920) and was selected as a Vimeo Staff Pick.