The Bellybuttons – Mannequins, Gr. (Video Premiere)

Described by someone at a gig once as “90s Velvet Underground meets Real Estate”, The Bellybuttons have been a big part of Glasgow’s DIY scene for the better part of the last decade. With a couple of EPs tucked neatly under their belt, the four-piece have been recording with Chris McCrory at Shady Lane Recording Studios and are now gearing up to release their debut album, Practice Maps, on 8 April via local label Fuzzkill Records.

The Skinny are thrilled to be premiering the music video for Mannequins, Gr., the third single to be taken from the album, which you can watch in the above YouTube player (click here if it’s not displaying properly).

“I spent a month living in Athens a couple of years ago and this song is a kind of snapshot of that experience,” frontman Conor Quill tells us. “I booked an Airbnb that was kitted out to be really kitsch and 60s thinking that would be cool. It was all lava lamps and zebra wallpaper. Then when I got there it was like a bondage dungeon in someone’s basement with no windows and all these weird mannequins positioned everywhere. That, and the feeling of alienation associated with being alone in a new city, is where the title comes from. Shopping has never been the same since.”

The music video, which features an abundance of angular guitar and bass playing, neck tambourine, shoulder keyboards, cassette tape destroying and smashing plant pots, was directed by Jimmy Gage and Alice Smoth from Artsy Vice: "We filmed it in mine and Alice's flat,” Gage tells us, “and we destroyed a lot of charity shop finds in front of a green screen – it was right good craic.

"The belly boys were very nice and well behaved. They left their golf clubs behind."

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Mannequins, Gr. is out now; Practice Maps is release on 8 Apr via Fuzzkill Records and available to buy here.

The Bellybuttons play their album launch show with support from Savage Mansion and The Lawnmower at The Old Hairdresser's, Glasgow, 13 Apr.

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