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The High5Collective, often abbreviated H5C, is a group of independent visual artists based in Los Angeles, California. As a production team, they began releasing videos in May 2011. The collective gained exposure mainly through the Indy blogosphere, but also received some support from larger websites such as Pitchfork, Rolling Stone, and The Huffington Post. In November 2011 they got signed to Partizan, an award-winning production company. H5C's website provides the following information: “We make art for artists that inspire us. New videos every couple weeks. Enjoy the art, bitches.”
Contents
History
The High5Collective's first appearance on the internet was with an unofficial fan-made music video for the song “The Morning” by the Toronto-based independent R&B singer, The Weeknd. In May 2011 the video was featured on Pitchfork in the Forkcast section of the website. A few days later it was also featured on Rolling Stone’s website in which they described “[It] plays out like a sexy nightmare in which a group of party girls wander around the desert in a daze before encountering a mysterious man with a sinister, corrupting influence.”
Shortly after, H5C released unofficial music videos for Frank Ocean and Tyler, the Creator of Los Angeles-based alternative hip hop collective OFWGKTA. As High5Collective’s second appearance on Pitchfork, their video for Frank Ocean’s “We All Try” was featured in the Forkcast section in June 2011. Pitchfork mentions, “The video features a young woman in the wake of a heinous crime, and it concludes with a potentially fiery bang”. The video was also featured on WorldStarHipHop a week later
H5C’s first official video, for Dutch DJ Sander Kleinenberg’s song “This Is Our Night”, was released on June 13, 2011. A week later the video was featured on the front page of VEVO where it received a fair amount of attention
High5Collective’s unofficial video for Tyler, the Creator’s “Transylvania” is perhaps their most controversial piece yet. Mark Schoneveld of YVYNYL wrote, “It’s fearless. It’s depraved. It’s disgusting. But wow, it’s good in the same way that Harmony Korine’s film Kids is good… there is definitive value to having a strong visceral reaction to art. It makes you question things. It makes you draw lines around your own values. It challenges you to define your right and wrong. It is invigorating. Or maybe, it really is just trash. Either way, this is bottom of the barrel in all the best ways possible.” In June 2011 Frank Ocean posted the Transylvania video on his personal Tumblr and wrote, “this is good. trippy. but damn good”. The video for Transylvania also marks H5C’s second appearance on WorldStarHipHop, featured on June 28, 2011.
In July 2011 was the High5Collective’s first appearance in print, when they received a write-up in the UK magazine NME. In the Buzz section was the caption, “The Cali-based creatives have been tickling our fancy of late with their ace and inventive avant-garde filmography. They say ‘we make videos for artists that inspire us’, a remit that focuses on creating ‘professional un-official’ clips. As such, they’re the brains behind the Weeknd’s ‘The Morning’ and Frank Ocean’s ‘We All Try’.”
In July of 2011 came the High5Collective’s third appearance on Pitchfork with the unofficial fan music video for Ty Segall’s “Girlfriend”. Pitchfork wrote, “…as chilling as a few other unofficial productions the group has released recently.”
Their video for the song “The Suburbs” (an Arcade Fire cover) by Mr. Little Jeans – aka Norwegian singer Monica Birkenes – was featured on The Huffington Post in August 2011. Huffington Post remarked, “ Why bother even making a video when you’ve got these guys? A group called the High5Collective is putting out unofficial music videos for artists that are so well-done, everyone is giving them well-deserved credence… the video [“The Suburbs”] expresses the darkness of the suburbs in an unexpectedly brutal way, with a girl who appears to be disturbingly sad at the center.”
September, 2011 saw the release of three H5C directed official music videos. AKB's "Duck Butter", Sander Kleinenberg's "Closer", and Frank Ocean's "Thinking About You". The High5Collective also put out an unofficial fan-made video for Kanye West & Jay-Z's "No Church In the Wild". Quickly in October came an official video for LA hardcore band Trash Talk's "Burn Alive". In the following month H5C released official videos for Theophilus London's "Love Is Real", and Citizens! "True Romance".
In November 2011 H5C also signed to Partizan, a world-wide award winning production company...