On ‘Chrysalis’ Wellington producer Benny Tones creates a warm, electronic blend of hip-hop and funk (and 80s video game sound effects) for co-writer Sacha Vee’s soulful vocals. Director Jessica Sanderson (granddaughter of actor Martyn Sanderson) opens her video with Benny walking through darkened inner city Wellington streets. The third busker that he passes morphs into and out of a resplendent, glittering Sacha Vee (and the Legacy Dance Crew) in a hyper-real world which celebrates the creativity of street performers too often ignored by passersby.

NZ's first house record was a one-off studio project for Simon Grigg, Alan Jansson, Dave Bulog and James Pinker. With a nod to UK act MARRS' indie/electro hit 'Pump up the Volume' — and a sample from Indeep's 'Last Night a DJ Saved My Life' — it briefly featured in the UK club charts. The TVNZ-made music video borrows the record's original graphics (by novelist Chad Taylor) and marries them to a mash-up of 1960s black and white, music related archive footage (including C'mon) with the occasional novelty act and politician added for good measure.

In a typically polished effort from the industrious Thunderlips duo, Doprah vocalist Indira Force’s metamorphosis into a schizophrenic kawaii girl (Japanese for ‘cute’) makes for an unsettling contrast to the song’s slow-burning ambience — although a late cameo from bandmate Steven Marr in Sailor Moon-style garb provides some comic relief. The clip premiered on US music journal SPIN’s online edition, and was nominated for Best Music Video at the 2014 Vodafone New Zealand Music Awards.

This black and white video is certainly not the first to adopt the patented 'are these images connected, or is it all a trick' approach. A woman crouches in a nightgown; a man waits in an expensive looking chair; a confident woman in a distinctive dress enters the room, possibly for the cash. Taken from 1994's Broadcast, probably Strawpeople's most successful album, 'Trick with a Knife' features vocals by Fiona McDonald. Strawpeople founders Mark Tierney and Paul Casserly make fleeting appearances.

The song title is literally animated in this Ned Wenlock-directed promo for a track from Wellington electronica explorer Rhian Sheehan. Sheehan's lounge beats are set to a lunar day-trip plot, where a chilled-out Right Stuff ends in satellite-gazing reverie.

Director Justin Pemberton takes this love song by Paul Casserly and Fiona McDonald (from fourth Strawpeople album Vicarious) and transforms it into an exercise in noir influenced, brooding unease. His video takes place over a night at a rural motel (with McDonald as a receptionist, and Casserly up to no good with a range of medical equipment). A tarot card-reading, yoga-practising new-ager, a traveller with unexplained cages, and random appearances from stringed instrument-playing senior citizens contribute to the growing sense of disquiet.

Strawpeople Paul Casserly and Mark Tierney took themselves to Hong Kong (with guest vocalist Leza Corban) for this video. Corban's jazzy vocal and the chilled beats contrast with the hustle and bustle of the cityscape (still under the flight path of Kai Tak airport at the time). The trumpet is courtesy of Greg Johnson and the sampled voice is Richard Nixon talking to the Apollo 11 astronauts on the moon. Co-written by Tierney and Casserly with Anthony Ioasa, Sweet Disorder won the 1995 APRA Silver Scroll for songwriting, plus the songwriting gong at the 1996 NZ Music Awards.

"We are New Zealand - it's you and I" sings Minuit's Ruth Carr as images of everyday New Zealanders flash up on the screen. Directed by band member Paul Dodge, Minuit's video for 'Aotearoa' is a nostalgic trip through the archives — a celebration of NZ history starting with images of people and places, including Rangitoto, the Pink Terraces, Greytown's historic Revington's hotel through to Sir Edmund Hillary, Aunt Daisy and Ernest Rutherford, as well as national tragedies, protests and hikois — and even the six o'clock swill gets a look in.

Musical shapeshifter SJD (short for Sean James Donnelly) released second album Lost Soul Music in 2001, early in a career that has seen him blending synthesisers, backwards voices, and a love of melody — all while working to ensure that each new album heads somewhere different from the last. His vocal on single 'A Boy' shows echoes of Beck, an artist some have cited as an influence. Co-directed by his brother Kieran and Dominic Taylor, the music video mixes lively, childlike animation with shimmering images of an unusual room and the boy inside...whose head is often a blur.

After a debut single that flirted with punk parody, this moody, accusatory follow-up firmly points Mi-Sex in the direction of the electronic influenced rock that will characterise their future sound — and make them one of Australia's leading acts in the 80s. In his leathers, lead singer Steve Gilpin has firmly said good-bye to his previous career in light entertainment. The video places the band members amongst outsized pieces on a giant chess board — a rather curious staging choice, perhaps, given that the king and queen in the lyrics are playing cards.