We learnt over the weekend that someone rather brilliant had died - that person being Gideon Baws, a founder member of Shynola. For the uninitiated, Shynola have been making original, beautiful and joyful animation for pop videos for nearly fifteen years. It is a company started by four friends who studied together and even if you have not heard of them, you have very likely seen their work. Gideon was only 33 and even though we do not know him personally, it made us very sad.

It is odd, really, but sometimes there are seemingly incidental things about records which make them inordinately special. It might be that you get an in-joke or can correctly identify someone in the liner notes. It might be that one song has an uncanny resonance even though you do not know what the lyrics are. Sometimes it is just something silly, like the font the band have used, or tiny portion of the artwork which tickles you. Very occasionally, it is just one funny noise in one part of one song that you find yourself able to rant about, because it is the best rave siren/piano break/doomy bass bit you have ever heard.

Anyway, though we are usually just about the silly here, we would like to point out on a serious note that we feel that weird, seemingly-inconsequential 'I like them for some reason' way about Shynola. They created the best squirrel DJ in a pop video ever. And we would like to thank Gideon and his three friends for doing that. He is the chap in the pic above, or you can see him in action below:

QUANNUM - I CHANGED MY MIND

More popvideoamazingness from Shynola:

JUNIOR SENIOR

DAVID SHRIGLEY BLUR PROMO

LAMBCHOP - IS A WOMAN

Shynola on the internets