New video platform aims to replicate original MTV’s sense of discovery

We know we’re prone to hyperbole on occasion here at It’s Nice That, but JuiceVCR really is a revelation. I’ve been using it daily since discovering it, and will undoubtedly continue to do so – that’s how brilliant it is, and I’m not a person who’s good at sticking to things (see: meditating, using Pinterest, etc.) The platform is the brainchild of Jessica Straker and was created by design studio antipattern with the aim of bringing weird, wonderful, under-the-radar music to us instantly. It’s a superb innovation in a time where it’s so easy to discover exactly what we want to listen to or watch with the likes of Spotify or YoutTube that while new, rare music is at our fingertips, discovering it on the off chance somehow feels harder.

“Do you remember when MTV played music videos? I really miss that type of discovery,” says Jessica. She says that the platform looks to strengthen the glue holding together “the hypnotic relationship between sight and sound,” as well as celebrating DIY culture and bringing it to larger audiences. Jessica says: “You know those times when you stumble into a weird and wonderful sub-culture on YouTube? There’s so much stuff you might never get ‘recommended’ – I wanted to bring back that vibe of coming across something again in the way only traditional mediums could do it.”

The site works as a continuous, uninterrupted stream of music videos: there’s no search, no choice, you just skip tracks and get what you’re given. It’s a mix of more established but still very much DIY names like Ariel Pink and Mac DeMarco and stuff you’ve never heard of – all of it brilliant in its peculiar little way.

Jessica continues: “The site is about the celebration of DIY culture within the arts – underground, emerging or independent – from people who have built something or are trying to establish themselves…Audio-visual mediums will always be relevant because that’s how we view the world.”