Dragut Lugalzagosi is a Copenhagen-based singer/songwriter, musician and creative mastermind behind the emerging solo project Britney Freud. And with Britney Freud, Lugalzagosi explores masculinity, vulnerability, love without focus on gender while advocating for men and boys to be more open about their feelings and emotions. He describes the project’s sound as “tender crooner noise, catchy limbo punk and a fresh take on indie rock.”
The Copenhagen-based artist’s Britney Freud debut single, “Feeling For Violence” is a brooding and atmospheric tune, featuring bursts of shimmering guitars, a supple and propulsive bass line, buzzing bass synths and a wobbling violin solo serving as a lush bed for Lugalzagosi’s achingly tender baritone croon singing lyrics lamenting the difficult end of an important friendship. The song’s narrator admits his complicated and conflicted feelings about the friendship and his friends with an unvarnished, unflinchingly honesty and vulnerability: The sense of hurt, betrayal and love the narrator feels is both palpable and deeply lived-in.
“An important friend relationship went to pieces and I felt lost, so I wrote this song and went to therapy. It helped. I still love him,” Lugalzagosi explains.
Directed, filmed and edited by Pelle Raft Calum, the accompanying video for “Feelings For Violence” follows a burned-out finance bro dancing and vamping on a high school track. He winds up in the woods where he explodes in violent frustration before collapsing from exhaustion. At some point, a disheveled figure, perhaps Britney Freud appears and offers the burned-out finance bro a comforting, understanding hug.
“We men dominate in several discouraging statistics and I’ve known boys and men who have committed violence, self-harm and suicide,” Lugalzagsoi says. “They’ve lacked a language for their emotions and a sense of being seen in a world of sometimes claustrophobic gender roles, norm porn and taboos. I often find it difficult myself navigating in being a man and opening up so let’s just have it: More love between men.”