Sleigh Bells - Rill Rill

What this video is

Released in March 2011 as a video for a track from Sleigh Bells' May 2010 debut album Treats, 'Rill Rill' was the band's most accessible and celebrated song — a Funkadelic 'Can You Get to That' (Maggot Brain, 1971) sample cloaked in noise-pop production. The track was cited by TIME among the Top 10 songs of 2010 and later used in a 2013 Apple iPhone advertisement, cementing its cultural durability. The video's…

Why it matters

A landmark artifact of early-2010s noise pop's commercial-critical peak. 'Rill Rill' represented the softer, melodic pole of Sleigh Bells' abrasive sound and demonstrated the genre's capacity for crossover appeal. The video's cinematic ambition — produced through Smuggler with The Mill post —…

The director

Jonathan Watts (born June 28, 1981, Fountain, Colorado) studied film at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts. He built his early career directing short films, commercials, and music videos for artists including Fatboy Slim, Death Cab for Cutie, TV on the Radio,…