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MUSIC

The Most Disturbing Music Videos of All Time

It's Halloween, so if you wanna scare your friends, here is your chance.

Halloween is right around the corner, and while the music video art form is undergoing a transformation thanks to streaming, many of today's artists still rely on music videos to help elevate their music.

Sometimes, the results are horrifying. We all remember the day we were first exposed to Marilyn Manson's eerie music video for "The Beautiful People," or what we were doing when Tool's cartoonish depictions of rape in "Prison Sex" sent us all reeling. As shown by our list below, the music video format is one that can truly shock and awe, and while horror films are having their moment this week, let's revisit some of the most disturbing music videos in recent memory.

"A Little Piece of Heaven" By Avenged Sevenfold

The playful animation, musical skeletons, and goofy cut-outs quickly lull the viewer into a false sense of security, but the next thing you know, the video's protagonist is killing his girlfriend and viciously raping her rotting corpse. At one point he even purchases a heater to keep her body warm. The cartoonish nature elevates the disturbing narrative told by M. Shadows and will forever change the way we listen to this song.

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Jack Gray Premieres His New Track "Friends Like These"

The Australian artist's latest single is an introspective look at his own burgeoning career.

Wolfe and Von Creative

In an exclusive Popdust premiere, Australian pop artist Jack Gray shares "Friends Like These," his latest infectious single.

Gray prides himself on a genre-blending aesthetic, and a scintillating track like "Friends Like These" is no exception. "I grew up listening to everything," he says, "so I feel like that sets the table for me as a songwriter."

"Friends Like These" originates from that same genre-blending aesthetic. Sustained by a powerful EDM-indebted beat, the song features Gray's earnest vocals tuned against a swooping backing chorus and a distorted guitar line. The sound is massive and immediate in its power, drawing the listener in and keeping them there with an electronic, nearly orchestral verve.

Gray's lyrics buckle down the track's soaring production with a dose of reality, worrying about authenticity and paranoia in an unfamiliar setting. "Don't get too close," Gray urges the listener, as if he's protecting someone else as much as he's protecting himself. The song's inviting sound bounces pleasantly off of Gray's anxious songwriting. As young as Gray is, it's refreshing to hear him experiment with introspection on "Friends Like These," a single shot through with a deeply accessible pop.

With a few singles under his belt already and an EP in the works, Jack Gray's making his way in the industry, and "Friends Like These" suggests he's an up-and-coming talent to watch.

Follow Jack Gray online at Twitter | Facebook | Spotify

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MUSIC

Tycho's New Album "Weather" Takes a Conventional Turn

On his fifth studio album, Tycho goes in a different direction.

Purple Sneakers

Scott Hansen—better known by his pseudonym, Tycho—is nothing short of a modern-day Renaissance man.

In addition to composing and producing organic, vintage, and chilled-out electronic music, he is also an accomplished visual artist. Going by yet another name for his photography and design work, ISO50, Hansen is the rare sort of artist who border-crosses genres and artistic media with ease. In fact, taking a look at his blog will indicate that Hansen does not seem to view visual art, design, and music as being as separate or compartmentalized entities. Often in posts, he will pair his highly stylized and evocative works of art with his music, creating a multisensory experience for the consumer

And anyone who is familiar with Hansen's music knows that, typically, Tycho privileges mood, ambiance, texture, and emotional gravity over lyrics and conventional song structures (verse, chorus, verse, bridge, etc.). Instead, Tycho's music tends to unfurl effortlessly—with chords, melodies, and harmonies seeming to merely occur, as opposed to being composed and fit into a rigid or pre-determined structure. Tycho's music is like a lucky snapshot of a mountainous landscape bathed in dusky light, sounding as if it has always existed; all Hansen had to do was record it.

Perhaps, this is why Tycho's music is so versatile, why his songs make for the perfect backdrop to nearly any activity. 2011's Drive, for instance, is perfect for a quiet night in, perhaps lulling the listener to sleep with mellow and hypnotic flourish; but it works just as well as the soundtrack to a late-night drive to clear your head or let your thoughts wander. Awake, on the other hand, released in 2016, is great background music for hunkering down and getting some work done; it is also the perfect companion to an intimate conversation with close friends—its unassuming and chilled-out motion seems to guide the mind toward a peaceful state of focus.

On his latest album, Weather, however, Tycho takes a different approach. After four albums of doing more or less the same thing (making meandering mood music), Hansen has opted to give fans something a bit closer to that traditional song structure that he has spent years evading with grace.

The first song of the album, "Easy," places us firmly in the sonic world that we have come to expect from Tycho: synth-heavy and warm, calming, up-tempo, and largely instrumental. It serves as a segue from his previous work to the new directions taken on Weather, with a female vocalist singing words that cannot be clearly discerned underneath a heavy current of tranquil electronica.

By the second track, though, longtime Tycho listeners may be taken aback. "Pink and Blue" features a guest vocalist, an unprecedented move for Tycho's solo work. Saint Sinner's voice opens the song, crooning, "Oh pink and blue, yeah, you know I look good on you" with an airy and buoyant melody that sounds surprisingly natural alongside Tycho's signature soundscape, as unexpected as it may be on a first listen.

The rest of the album, too, features Saint Sinner heavily. On every track save two Saint Sinner's soothing voice acts as a perfect counterpart to Tycho's electronic meditations, grounding the music in more conventional structures without overpowering the sonic vistas Tycho paints. If anything, Saint Sinner's poetic lyrics and smart melodic sensibilities add a new layer of paint to Hansen's already lush canvas.

Weather, then, comes off as a distinctly collaborative effort. Yet, as easily as Saint Sinner's voice fits into Tycho's even and impactful mixes, the addition of a vocalist to Hansen's work does, at times, compromise what made Tycho, Tycho. In his richly layered and complex compositions the absence of lyrics always made plenty of space for you to inhabit—to fill in the blanks and let the song become whatever you needed it to be.

That's not to say Weather is not an enjoyable listen. It definitely is—from a production and songwriting standpoint. But, frankly, this doesn't sound as much like a Tycho album as it does a particularly successful album by, say, The XX. What made Tycho so different on his first four studio releases was the way in which his music served as a versatile and almost interactive experience between artist and listener. This was, for many fans, what made Tycho's music so special and unique: how every song on Drive or Awake could take on profound meanings in myriad unrelated ways. He would provide the vista, and you would decide how to interpret it. On Weather, though, Tycho paints the picture, and then Saint Sinner tells you what it means.

Weather


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Drum & Lace Talks New Album and the Art of Composing

The film, TV, and orchestral composer discusses her album "Semi Songs," her creative process, and her rising success in this candid Q&A.

@elliepritts

There's a good chance that you've heard Drum & Lace already, even if you aren't aware of her by name.

The Italian composer, Sofia Hultquist, has been described as a "sound artist." Her work, which often combines cinematic elements with ambient electronica and contemporary classical composition, has been featured in films such as The First Monday in May, The Gospel According to Andre, and Invisible Hands. If you haven't seen any of these films, then perhaps you will come across her music in the scores for the upcoming HBO documentary, At the Heart of Gold, or the AppleTV+ series, Dickinson.

As an extremely versatile and unbridled composer, it is nearly impossible to boil her work down to a simple soundbite. So we asked Drum & Lace to provide some insight into her forthcoming album, Semi Songs, in her own words:

Your forthcoming album, Semi Songs, takes the listener on a riveting journey from anxiety ("Outsider Complex Pt.1") to a quieter (perhaps solitary?) nature-driven meditation ("Parhelion and "Gardenia"), only to wind up in a renewed state of anxiety. Would you care to let listeners in on what sort of experiential arc and/or message is intended with this circular form (if any)?

I'm glad that this comes across when listening to the record! The way that Semi Songs was structured was very intentional and was put together to resemble how I've felt in the past about various situations and life in general. Starting off the record with the frantic riff of "Outsider Complex Part 1," which is all about anxiety and vulnerability, felt appropriate, because when you do get hit with those feelings, they come on suddenly and sometimes out of nowhere. That track and its "riff" help catapult the rest of the emotional kick that follows on the record.

The next piece, "Parhelion," is a slight step into the positive on an emotional level, and it was inspired by the concept of courage and discovery, but also deception. There is a nature element to this piece—a parhelion is an atmospheric phenomenon that causes you to see multiple suns, and I thought that was the perfect analogy for what I was feeling—this sense of duality. Unlike "Outsider Complex Part 1" and "Part 2," both "Parhelion" and "Gardenia's" perspectives are internal and self-checking/preserving.

"Gardenia" is the most personal of all the pieces and explores my relationship with love and loss, focusing in particular on my relationship with my mother. Relationships with parents can be beautiful, but also inexplicably difficult, and this piece felt like a way to dive deeper and explore things and feelings that I have internalized that have often caused me pain and joy.

When we finally do get back to "Outsider Complex Part 2," there is still definitely a bit of a state of chaos. But, hopefully, the listener will also feel a sense of resolution—like we've gone on this ride, and now that opening "riff" feels just a little different and sounds more hopeful and anticipatory. Maybe "Outsider Complex Part 2" won't read like that to everyone, and instead it'll instill a sense that we've still, somehow, wound up in the same place we started. Breaking a cycle is not always easy, and for me it was about letting myself be vulnerable enough to be able to arrive at a place where something like "Outsider Complex Part 2" would feel different.

As a composer, when an idea for a piece comes to you, does it tend to come in a particular instrument or instrument family? Do you tend to hear the entire ensemble at once, or do you hear, say, a particular melody and then build from there? Or maybe it's something else entirely?

Great question! More often than not, I'll start writing on piano or will start singing a specific melodic idea that I then lay out either on piano or with a specific sound, if that's what I'm hearing. Once an idea is written down, somewhat, that's when I'll often "hear" the rest of the instrumentation. There are also a lot of times when I set out to write something for a specific set of instruments, which makes it both easier and harder, as then you are having to work with a pre-determined palette. I think this is why, right now, I like the idea of writing for smaller ensembles and electronics. It gives me structure with the "real" instruments and then allows for me to add any other elements via electronics [...] As a final thought on this all, I'll just say that I love the cello, so most of what I compose will always have one or more cellos!

You have had a rather fruitful career in music composition, which is not necessarily an easy space to navigate. Do you have any advice to offer aspiring composers who might be reading this article, either regarding the composition process itself or anything else?

Thank you. I feel like I'm very much at the beginning of what I'm hoping will continue to be a really fulfilling career! It's definitely not been easy, and like with all creative and freelance work, it's all about the ups and downs and being able to navigate that. What I think has really helped me is that even when I'm not composing for a specific project or film, I'm always writing. And when I do, I try to write what feels good to me and what sounds right to me, without trying to fit into any sort of musical trend. [...] And it's also equally important to have your own voice—make sure your personality comes across in your music. It's all about the give and take, but being able to stick with the great moments and hardships will get you really far!

Semi Songs will be released on Friday, 7/19!

At the Heart of Gold (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)


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Nakhane Talks Love, Evolution, and "New Brighton"

The South African singer sits with Popdust to discuss his new single and how he approaches the work.

Nakhane

"Convenience and ease are your enemies, in my opinion. It's not Instagram, it's a work of art that's gonna outlast your little life."

Nakhane speaks with an easy poise, excitable with a dazzling energy. He's been compared to queer luminaries like James Baldwin and David Bowie, and the comparison becomes clear when talking with him—the casual, almost-devilish way he articulates his brilliance.

Not to imply there's any pretension or artifice to the South African artist or his work. In fact, his music cradles an unshaken honesty in the way he forces his past and his future into dramatic conversation. His latest single, "New Brighton," a collaboration with English singer Anohni, unfolds in a characteristically dreamlike reverie: a warmly dancing drum anchors the track's symphonic electronica wave, as Nakhane's angelic voice soars above: "Never live in fear again / No, never again." Nakane is as serious about his craft as he is loving, and the effect is nothing less than mesmerizing.

Popdust was able to speak to Nakhane before his June 29th performance in Sao Paolo's Dogma Festival, in a conversation about his influences, his artistry, and (unexpectedly) the fashion sense of the Catholic Church. ("Look at the Pope! He looks great. All the colors? So camp! He's basically in drag!")

How long are you going to be in Brazil for?

Oh, God. So we arrived today, and then we play tomorrow, and then we leave the next day. So, about two and a half days?

God, so you're going to be frazzled for a while.

Yeah, but I'm really used to it now. I think I know how to best take care of myself. Because I'm a singer, I know that I can't go out and do things. I'm in the country by name only, by passport alone. [Laughs] My mind could be anywhere, my body's here. I get to the country, I drink lots of water, I don't drink alcohol, I try to eat as healthily as possible, I exercise, I play the show, and I get out.

Has the idea of taking care of yourself been something you've had to work on?

I suppose. You know, my first album was only released in South Africa. I didn't understand how much of a toll not taking care of yourself would take on your body. Maybe not on your body, but on your voice. […] When I released my first album, everyone was talking about "the voice, the voice, the voice," and then after we released You Will Not Die, everyone was talking about "the voice, the voice, the voice." It's really moving that people like my voice, but it also puts such a responsibility, such pressure, on me to take care of it. Because some people, at least this year or last year, are seeing me for the first time playing live. So they'll come to a show, and maybe I've had a rough night, and [I'm] hoarse, not hitting notes, flat, sharp. And they'll think the whole thing was made up, and that it was all the studio! We can't have that.

So you have to take care of the equipment, basically.

Exactly. And I'm so jealous of my band and the crew. They can do things. They're out now, gallivanting and sightseeing, having glasses of wine. If you drop a guitar, we can get you a new one, or if you fuck up your drums, we can get another set. If I fuck up my body, if I fuck up my voice, that's it. You don't get a second chance.

Your most recent single, "New Brighton," was made with Anohni. What did Anohni bring to your vision for the song? And how do you think about collaboration in your own work?

This song took so long to get right. It was the first song I wrote for the album, [from] I think New Year's Eve of 2013? And then we recorded You Will Not Die, and it was released everywhere except for the United States and some other countries, and ["New Brighton"] still wasn't in that version. And then I performed it on some TV station in South Africa, and the label saw it, and they were like, "What song is this? This song is amazing!" And I said, "Well, it was part of the demos that you didn't care for."

So we re-recorded it, and re-recorded it, I think we recorded like three times. And still something wasn't quite gelling. [And then] I had the idea of asking Anohni to sing on it. It was the perfect thing to get it right. […] She grounded it, you know? Even though her vocals are really massive. I wanted her to sound like an ancestor, to make me feel like I can take up space in the world. And she really brought the sense of urgency, but also comfort, love, validation, et cetera et cetera.

Nakhane

So, she helped put you in conversation with an ancestor over the course of the song?

Oh, my God, yeah. Completely. It's almost like a call-and-response. She comes into the chorus, and we're singing together, but she's mixed higher. We tried different ways of mixing it, but our voices have similar timbres, so her vocals would just get lost. So I said to the engineer, "Fuck it, just blast her." I used the example of the Iggy Pop and Cat Power song, "Nothin But Time," where [Iggy] comes in and he just sounds like a Greek God.

And the fact that she understood that in your collaboration, and the song came out like that…

Well, she's a genius. She's one of the kindest musicians I've ever corresponded with in my life.

You've written a novel, you're working on a second one, you've released a meticulous and cinematic album with You Will Not Die, and you've starred in a gorgeous and critically-acclaimed film (The Wound, 2017). What's the significance, to you, of the variation of roles you take on as an artist?

Nothing's different and everything's different, right? What I like about being an actor is relinquishing control, and just being bossed around by a director. I like that it's not about me. Nakhane doesn't even exist, I'm not even Nakhane onscreen, I'm someone else. Whereas with my music, with my writing, with my literature, it's so represented by my body, by my politics, by who I am, or I guess who people think I am. With acting, I get to put that away, and be of use to someone else's ideas, to have no ego. I like that.

Music for me has always been there. It's in my body. I was singing myself to sleep since I was four years old. I used to sing and walk to the bus station. I still do that, even though I live in London and people give me looks. [Laughs] And words gave me a sense of belonging, you know. I realized, "Oh, okay, I can read something, and it can make me feel something." Written by somebody who's next to me, like a love letter, or written by somebody who died 200 years ago, from a different country, generation, gender, sex, whatever. But somehow it travels through time and still touches you.

Would you say it's about a degree of agency? Someone else's work versus yours, in different artistic registers?

It is completely about agency, but it's also about representation. Toni Morrison said if you have a story that hasn't been told yet, you have the responsibility to write that story. With my novel, at least, what I was trying to make, I hadn't seen, I hadn't read. I could be wrong, because I haven't read every book in the world, right? So there's a little bit of an ego thing, like, "Oh, I've never seen this before. Let me write it, finally." But I hadn't seen the people that I was writing about in the way I wanted them to be. So I took it upon myself to do that.

Are there any contemporary artists, in South Africa or the world at large, that you feel are working in the same kind of space that you are, either in concept or in sound?

Oh, yeah, completely. I'm not in any way isolated, or special. There's so many incredible musicians. There's a performance duo called Faka from South Africa, they were performing in Sao Paolo as well yesterday, but I think they've left now. Two friends of mine, actually. They are incredible. They make me feel brave, you know? One of them, actually, I used to date, like ten years ago, and he taught me so much. To see them doing so well now in their work, it makes me feel…You know when you're growing up and you're twenty years old, and you all have these dreams, and then they do come true, but they come true for all of you? [Laughs] It's really rare, but it's really beautiful. And the work they're doing is so different, that there's no competition, that's what I like about it. And yet driven by the same principles: freedom, visibility—but so completely different.

There's another musician, called Thandiswa Mazwai. She's a legend, she's been around for a while, you know? But she shows you how incredible it can be for an artist to evolve through time, and still be relevant like 25 years later. And still be dangerous!

So that idea of evolution is important to you?

Yeah, what are you doing being stuck in—[Laughs] Okay, this might be a little bit problematic, but I'm going to say it anyway. When we were in Athens—there's this idea when you go to European countries that have kept their things that they did in antiquity, because they destroyed other people's stuff. They kept their shit, but destroyed everyone else's, so it seems like they're the only ones who are doing stuff. But I was in Athens, and a friend of mine—who is from Athens—said, "You don't seem very impressed." And I said, "I'm not. This was created 3,500 years ago. That's great. Amazing. But I care about the now. What are you doing now, man?" And this friend had said, "Us Greeks, you know, [we] created culture 3,500 years ago." And I said "Well, you mean like everyone else in the world?" What the fuck? This whole idea that certain civilizations were more elevated than others, which is complete bullshit. But in terms of evolution, and being interested in the now, that's what I'm trying to be. I'm trying to live now. The past may help us in reminding us of what not to do, but it can also be dangerous in that we get stuck there.

I think one must always grow. I'm lucky…I'm 31 years old, and this stuff is only starting to happen for me now. For a long long time, in my twenties, I was really depressed. Like, "Oh my God! All my friends are getting married, and having babies, and their careers, buying houses. And I'm working in a bookstore." Not that there's anything wrong with a bookstore, but I have dreams, you know? Around 27, things started to really unify and collect. So, now, I'm a little bit older. I don't need to party when I'm performing. After this, I'm gonna go home to England, I'm gonna be free for a week. I can party as much as I goddamn want to. [Laughs] But I have a project now, and so I have to be focused on that now. I take my work very seriously. I don't take myself seriously, I think I'm an idiot, but I take the work very seriously. It's a vocational thing.

There's a sense of being called to it.

Completely. I really believe in that. I think it's shamanistic.

Oh my God, oh my God. Chimimanda [Nqozi Adichie, author of We Should All Be Feminists] wrote about the danger of the single story, [and how] people who grew up in that world, or were cultured in that world, start to believe that's the only story that they can tell, and that's the only story that has value. And that the faces they see making those stories, or realizing those stories…[You believe] "I'm not worthy, I have no value." People like me, queer people, queer stories, are not seen as having value. And that's not true.

What I find so exciting about these times, right now, as ugly as they are—I mean, they're also very beautiful. A series like Pose could not have existed in any other time but now! And it's not just some kooky, weird avant-garde thing on the left you watch with your friends, it's mass media. So yeah, there's Trump, and yes, there's Brexit. But there's billions and billions of other people, and there's billions and billions of other stories!

And there's room being made for them.

Exactly.

Pose is so good, man.

I love it so much.

Your first album, Brave Confusion (2013) was much more folk-leaning in its sound, but since then you've transitioned into a more electronic, orchestral sound that showed up on You Will Not Die. What did you find in electronic music that you couldn't find in other genres?

Well, it wasn't necessarily much of a genre thing as much it was a tool thing. When I made Brave Confusion, all I could afford was my shitty acoustic guitar, and that's all I wrote on. So when I recorded those songs, I was so naive that I thought that was the only way I could realize those songs. And it's not that I dishonor those songs, because without those songs and without that album, I wouldn't be where I am now. But cut to me recording You Will Not Die, and now I can imagine much more widely, and wildly. I can go, "Ooh, I want a sea of synthesizers." And I can ask Ben Christophers [producer of You Will Not Die] to do that for me.

Whereas before I was a little bit more nervous to say that I didn't like something, to command what I wanted in my work. And I really wanted to make a grand album, I wanted it to be operatic. Because I was writing about my childhood, my family....and I couldn't write about my family in a timid way. The kind of music we were making was not timid, it was big and loud and over-the-top. It's not about me saying "I want to sound like Brian Eno," it's more me going, "Oh, I can do whatever I want! We can get the synthesizers, we can manipulate the sound—we can live in a sound world now."

You're very open about walking away from Christianity, but it's interesting to see how religious imagery and references to prayer crop up in your work. How does the faith you grew up in affect your storytelling, and why is its presence important to you?

I call Christianity my mother tongue, you know? Before you learn other languages, you speak the language your people speak in. And you can leave the country that you were born in, but the language will always be with you. I may live in England, but Christianity is still in me, I'll never lose it ever. Whether I think it's beautiful or not, it'll always be there. Those were the first stories that I heard. They opened up my imagination. There's some incredible storytelling in the Bible. So I use it now, instead of it using me. I have power over it, instead of it having power of me. That's the difference. Because for so long, I was its tool. Or at least, people used it as a tool to manage me. To manage entire populations! What I'm interested in now is ,can you step away from it and still use this mother tongue, without it being so heavy and hateful and bitter?

The most interesting thing you do on You Will Not Die is how the lyricism about love and queerness—I mean, correct me if I'm misunderstanding, but it's not really about juxtaposition with religious imagery, it's like they're inextricable.

Exactly. Exactly. I'm not interested in being clever about it. That's nice, you can pat yourself on the back, but it doesn't touch anybody, no one's moved. If it doesn't connect with me emotionally, because I make it, then it's not gonna connect to anyone else. And since this is the language I'm using, then there's no time for me to try and outdo it in this cleverness. You can't outrun it…I'm interested in the romance between those languages, between life and the language of the Bible, and saying, "Okay, we're divorcing, but I understand why you matter to so many people." My mother is still a very conservative Christian, and I may not agree with her on certain things, but I understand why she's still there. [...] There's always this idealized form of living, and then there's the real one beneath it, which is what I'm interested in.

I really appreciate how You Will Not Die explores love, as something lacking, something sought, or something found, in yourself or in other people. What's been the biggest part for you of bringing that sense of exploration to life?

That love is boundless, love is bigger than the constructs that we were born into, that we construct for ourselves. Since it came out in Europe in 2018, that's been an exploration of mine—What is love to you? What can you do to make sure it's something that you can pass on, with your work and in your life? It's easy to sing about it and just live a different life, but I'd feel like a complete hypocrite. Lots of artists have been fine with that. Where they write the most beautiful, loving things and then they're monsters in real life. So I've been trying not to do that.

Of course I fuck up, because I'm a human being. But again, the bigness of love, the malleability of it. It can withstand anything. And that can be really problematic, but it's also really beautiful. This is so bad, and my poetry teachers would kill me, but it really is like water, in that it fits into any shape. Until it freezes over, and it's done. But before that…before that, it's life itself. How it allows itself to be used, but also how it uses you. How you may think it has no power over you, but it does. I've stopped trying to understand it.

At the end of the summer, you're playing SummerStage in New York City. In your live performances, you have this really commanding stage presence, but you're also creating this very safe environment, just in how you as a performer take up that space. What do you care most about communicating to a live audience?

That they feel like they can be the version of themselves that they want to be. I think Kim Gordon [of Sonic Youth] wrote an essay about how people go to a show so that they can believe in themselves, because they believe in that artist. So that safe space is really important to me, that a person can lose themselves, forget all their bullshit outside the door for that hour. Sometimes there's such a distance between the audience and the performer. I'm not interested in that. I'm interested in us feeding each other.

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Belau's New Video, "Essence," Reminds Us Bliss Comes From Within

A premiere of the group's new music video, as well as a Q&A with member, Krisztian Buzas

Electronic duo, Peter Kedves and Krisztian Buzas, better known as Belau, have been making music together since they were ten years old.

And that remarkable history and chemistry can be heard in the group's uniquely organic sound. It is rare that you come across an electronic act that can trick the ear into forgetting about the synthesized sounds that go into it. But the song behind Belau's latest video does just that – the duo blends both ethereal and earthen sounds into a hypnotically relaxing soundscape that begs the listener to let go of her daily stresses and be whisked away to a calmer place of introspective bliss. And the video for their latest single, "Essence," which features Sophie Baker (of Zero7 fame) on vocals, captures this sonic transportation perfectly. Belau's Krisztian Buzas kindly agreed to answer a few questions about the "Essence" video, working with Baker, and Belau's origins (as well as their future destinations):

What is the story behind the name, Belau? How do you see it connecting to the group's sound?

Peter and I have been friends since we were 10. We grew up together and have always loved geography. We would browse world maps for hours. However, it took a long time for us to notice that minor country in the middle of the Pacific ocean, Palau. Aboriginal people, however, have a slightly different name for Palau: Belau. The word is indicative of pleasure, being by the sea, and looking within oneself. Just like the music of Belau. We were always driven by the intention of bringing people to another state – where they can redefine themselves and dive inside themselves to find a sense of serenity, which glows just like the sun on the waves of the ocean. However, we have to admit: we have never been to Palau, but want to go so badly.

The video for 'Essence' follows three solitary women who all drink from an apothecary jar of sorts. When they do, they are each doubled and tripled shown, then to be in the company of other versions of themselves, no longer alone in a sense. Can you speak a little bit to the vision behind the video, and how you see the themes connecting to the song (either on a lyrical or sonic level)?

Through the song, we were trying to capture individual milestones of existence – isolation to freedom, solitude to interaction. We were trying to inspire people to discover their lives outside of physical boundaries, by drinking the so-called 'Belau cocktail' when they suddenly start to see more sides of themselves ... things that they did not know before, experiences that they've always wanted to have, and emotions that they want to feel, even if they have never felt them before. The three girls represent the human, who seeks greater truth from within.

Sophie Baker is the guest vocalist on 'Essence'. What was it like to work with her? What was the writing and collaboration process like?

Sophie is a very down-to-earth woman who always welcomes you with a warm heart and a gentle smile. In the middle of the process, she told us that she has some Hungarian ancestors from the city of Esztergom (a wonderful town in northern Hungary). We met in London, where we were playing a symphonic set at St. Covent's Garden. It went very well. We even tried to create the basis of the rough vocal melodies and the lyrical theme for the instrumental [that night]. Afterwards, she sent us some demos, I wrote the lyrics for it, she flew to Budapest to record the song, and we had some great times together. I think it turned out pretty rad.

What can fans expect from Belau moving forward? Any albums in the works? Tours? More videos?

We are working on our second full-length, which will contain "Essence" and "Breath" [a 2018 single] as well, and try to go on with the job what we have already started with "The Odyssey." We are upgrading and improving (both live and in the studio). And yes, we will keep on the touring this summer. Our next big opportunity, for example, will be the Primavera in Barcelona, but we will try to impress the audience this year at Sziget [festival] and at Electric Castle as well. We have some big things coming soon! Get ready!

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