It’s that glorious time of the week again where you get to watch our top 5 favourite finds on the World Wide Web! Diego Raposo explores the facts of life with NUUXS, Albert Fallen escape to the country, VTR find connections, Drake pulls together a messy reunion, and Nao looks for answers.
Diego Raposo feat. NUUXS – ‘LIFE’
New video from Diego Raposo which features French-born, British based NUUXS and Ed Sheeran’s longtime producer Jake Gosling. The track is a pop-leaning dembow infused anthem. The 23-year-old Santiago-based artist is the founder of MITEL DICO – a collective of young, forward-thinking producers and visual artists from the Dominican Republic. His first Point Records release entitled ‘Maybe’ received a good amount of press, laid the way for his own distinguished sound where the lead single “Sauce” made the Billboard ‘Spotify Viral 50’ Chart. Alongside his personal project, Diego works as a producer and mix engineer for local underground projects as well as rap groups and collectives from Spain and Mexico. His latest project www.reggaetonedits.com with Venezuelan producer, VFRO is a platform featuring modern edits of classic reggaeton songs as well as official remixes of Dominican and Puerto Rican current viral hits.
Albert Fallen – ‘Modern’
Parisian duo Albert Fallen return to Splinter with ‘Modern’, the first single to be taken from their forthcoming new EP. A melancholy synth-pop number that follows in the grand tradition of acts like Visage and Bronski Beat, ‘Modern’ paints a picture of escape from small-town life in a thousand dazzling shades of grey. Complementing the song’s narrative Albert Fallen have again partnered with film collective WDBS to create a stunning video for the track. Filmed on location in Berlin the video for ‘Modern’ follows Hella, a young East German girl, as she runs away from the countryside, is caught in the gravity of the German capital and learns to navigate the sharp contrasts between the two. Since making their debut as Albert Fallen in 2015 Arthur and Rachid have quickly made a name for themselves with their atmospheric mix of indie, pop and electronic music that draws inspiration from as far afield as Berlin, Detroit, London and Manchester.
VTR – ‘Soul to Skin’
South London electronic duo VTR prepare their alluring debut Soul to Skin EP for release on Brixton’s Dream Diary Records. Singer-songwriter Kristy Clark and producer Olsi Rama merged their respective skills after several chance musical encounters in their shared Brixton studio. Clark’s sensual lyricism occupies a distinct space amidst Rama’s spectral sound design, striking a balance between haunting depth and inviting warmth. Throughout the EP’s four tracks, moments of pop clarity twist subtly into abstraction; vocals and sonics interlace and deviate much like the experimental films from which the duo draw inspiration.
Drake – ‘I’m Upset’
Drake’s former castmates from “Degrassi: The Next Generation” reunited for his latest video, “I’m Upset”. Shot in downtown Toronto from the Air Canada Centre, the video, directed by recent Prism Prize winner Karena Evans (“God’s Plan,” “Nice For What”), Drake runs wild after getting a phone reminder about a high school reunion, starting off with him in his yellow Ferrari with Shane Kippel as his passenger. “There was no acting going on in that video,” Jake Epstein, who played Craig Manning, a photographer turned rocker and one of Jimmy’s best friends, tells Variety. “It was truly a reunion of great friends who hadn’t seen each other in years. Drake’s team and Karena did a fantastic job of orchestrating the whole thing.” “It was the most incredible and layered experience,” adds Kippel. “A homage to the show that shaped all of our careers. … Unforgettable.”
Nao -‘Another Lifetime’
Two years on from the release of her debut album ‘For All We Know’, Nao is ready with new material. The U.K. singer and songwriter introduced herself with a self-described “wonky funk” sound, captured in the effortless and addictive singles “Bad Blood” and “Fool To Love.” However, new song “Another Lifetime” comes from a more fragile place. The bruised and contemplative ballad is reflected in a video in which she wanders the streets of Kiev, Ukraine alone and looking for answers. Speaking to The FADER via email, Nao said: “‘Another Lifetime’ came out of a tumultuous and conflicted period in my life. A long-term relationship ended without that closure you get from disliking the other person and it took a very long time to come to terms with that. Finding peace with ‘the end’ and what that means on a few levels was where the song came from. [Directors] Zhang and Knight translated that emotional concept to film brilliantly but I think their real achievement was telling that story with the right edit and sympathy to the music. It’s so easy to translate a personal song in a cheesy way or lose the musicality in the editing but I think they scored top points in every area.”
