Margot Kurtis is an emerging singer/songwriter and electro pop artist, who’s part of a new scene of artists incorporating elements of hip-hop and R&B into her sound and approach. Lyrically, Kurtis’ work feels like a page torn from her diary with the material drawing from her own life — her feelings and personal experiences, her doubts and the difficulties she has encouraged as a woman and as a female artist.
Her debut single, the Kids Return and Louis Dureau-produced “4 ans plus tard” is centered around a minimalist production featuring finger snaps, percussive, industrial thump, twinkling and arpeggiated keys paired with Kurtis’ sultry yet self-assured delivery. The title, which translates into English as “4 years later” is about Kurtis’ first four years in the music business. She explains that didn’t know what she was doing and naively believed everything she was told. She wound up being an automaton, who repeated — and did — everything she was told, until she realized that she was being lied to and led astray.
Directed by Frankie Allio, the accompanying visual for “4 ans plus tard” is a symbolic and surreal fever dream: the video begins with four men wearing the exact same outfit — lime green ski masks, black coats, black pants and black shoes, like demented members of the Blue Man Group. They sit vigil over a coffin, which contains a possessed Kurtis, who bursts out of the coffin. The rest of the video we see Kurtis interact with the ski mask wearing men: first she’s exhausted by them and tries to escape; but they’re always there in some fashion or another, lurking in the background.
