A record is no longer enough of a release. Over two weeks in September, three of indie’s best-known names put out films: Yeah Yeah Yeahs, with a 22-minute concert short; Conor Oberst, with a directorial debut; and Wet Leg’s Rhian Teasdale, starring in a film about New York. Add Drake’s FOMO, which premiered the same week, and the screen is suddenly where the music is.
Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Hidden in Pieces
The band got there first. On Sept. 1, Yeah Yeah Yeahs released Hidden in Pieces Live at the Royal Albert Hall, a 13-track live album, alongside a black-and-white film directed by Barnaby Clay. The short is streaming on the Criterion Channel and will screen in a handful of theaters worldwide from Sept. 21, per Pitchfork. Some of those screenings are double features with films that suggest the mood: Night of the Hunter at London’s Rio Cinema, Mulholland Drive in Melbourne and Sydney, Wings of Desire at The Roxy in New York, and Eraserhead at Vidiots in Los Angeles.
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Karen O said the project grew out of a need to commune with fans in a hard year:
Hidden in Pieces Live at the Royal Albert Hall was born out of a need to commune with our band and fan family in 2025, after the election.
Karen O, in a statement, Rolling Stone
She also credited the late David Lynch, whose passing came a month before the tour began, and said the performance begins with an ode to his legacy. Clay described his aim as capturing something “delicate and dream-like, like a precious memory, timeless, emotionally charged and shrouded in mystery.” A physical edition of the album, with bonus recordings from U.S. shows, follows on Oct. 23 via Secretly Canadian. Their last studio album was 2022’s Cool It Down.
The live album itself was built quickly. Karen O told Rolling Stone the band arranged almost 24 songs for a quartet and acoustic instrumentation in less than a week at Sonic Ranch in February 2025, with string arranger Jherek Bischoff, and that the Royal Albert Hall show was only the third of the tour and their first time playing there. She singled out a pipe-organ moment in “Skeletons” as “immaculate vibrations.”
Conor Oberst, Invention 13
The Bright Eyes songwriter, label founder and local bar owner is trying filmmaking. His directorial debut, a short called Invention 13, premieres Sept. 26 at Beyond Fest in Los Angeles, according to a press release quoted by Pitchfork. It follows a frustrated pianist trying to learn Bach’s notoriously intricate invention.
Oberst co-directed with fellow musician Shawn Foree. It stars Emory Cohen, Olivia Howard and pro skater Nelly Morville, with a score by Bright Eyes’ Nathaniel Walcott. Oberst’s old Better Oblivion Community Center bandmate, Phoebe Bridgers, provides a voiceover. There’s no trailer yet.
Rhian Teasdale, New York Found Me
The third film is a brand campaign, but it plays like a short. Teasdale, the Wet Leg singer, stars in New York Found Me, a film for Milk Makeup that went live Sept. 14. The FADER says she delivers a poetic monologue about how the city shapes artistry and identity. “People become memories. Places become feelings and you carry them with you,” she says.
The cast was chosen from more than 1,000 New Yorkers who showed up to an open casting call in SoHo in July. Arnaud Uyttenhove directed, Sergio Reis, known for the choreography in Troye Sivan’s “Rush” and “Got Me Started” videos, did the movement, and Sarah Richardson styled it. Teasdale has had a rocket-like rise since 2021’s “Chaise Longue,” and Wet Leg’s self-titled debut won two Grammys. Their latest album is 2025’s moisturizer.
What it adds up to
None of these is a vanity project. Each is built for a specific room: the Criterion Channel and art-house double features, a horror-and-genre festival, a New York party at Marquee. In an era when a single can slip past in a day, a film is a way to get an audience to sit still. The records they sit beside are worth hearing, but the films are what people are talking about this month.
Where to find them
Hidden in Pieces is streaming now on the Criterion Channel, with theater screenings Sept. 21 in London, Melbourne and Sydney; Sept. 22 to 24 in Mexico City; Sept. 23 in New York and Los Angeles; and Sept. 24 in Tokyo. Invention 13 premieres Sept. 26 at Beyond Fest. New York Found Me is out now.
Sources
Added to the High Grailed archive on October 12, 2026.
