Tag: Peter Gabriel Us

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Caroline Mason’s Surreal and Minimalist Visual for Brooding “If You Want Me To”

Caroline Mason is an emerging, Portland, OR-based multi-instrumentalist, composer, producer and experimental electronic music artist, who from an early age has been drawn to find a connection between the depths of human emotion and how must has the ability to take us to those places within ourselves. 

Mason’s latest single “If You Want Me To” is a brooding yet atmospheric song centered around a sinuous bass line, reverb and delay pedaled guitar, gently accumulating layers of wobbling, arpeggiated synths, Mason’s plaintive vocals and an infectious, ear worm of a hook. Sonically recalling Us-era Peter Gabriel, the song thematically touches upon honestly facing oneself and pushing away old habits, old fears and old selves for a bold new future. 

Directed by filmmaker and stylist Christal Angelique, the recently released video was inspired by English fashion designer Gareth Pugh and finds Mason dressed up in a custom, futuristic piece made by Portland-based designer Kate Towers. And in the video we see Mason in the desert, accompanied by a marching army of her doppelgängers. Angelique wanted the piece to be relatable for anyone facing fears and parts of themselves that needed to go. “It is about overcoming the battles within so one can move into their stronger, future self,” Mason says of the song.  

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Neta Tia Ellis is a Tel Aviv, Israel-born, Brooklyn-based singer/songwriter, producer, visual artist and experimental pop artist, who has received attention for crafting eerily minimalist electro pop with her solo recording project Tesha. Ellis’ soon-to-be released debut EP Growing Pains II is slated for release later this week, and the EP’s latest single, opening track “Funeral” is an eerily haunted track centered around shimmering and arpeggiated synths, a sinuous bass line, dirge-like drumming and Ellis’ ethereal crooning.    While possessing a cinematic air, the song is intimate and deeply personal in a way that brings Us-era Peter Gabriel to mind — but with a decidedly positive undertone to it.

Ellis admits in press notes that “This song is about my mom’s funeral. It was very sunny outside, and I knew she wanted me to laugh about this. She definitely didn’t want me to get stuck on the loss, but it hurt and it was also funny at the same time because I was comforting all of her devastated patients (which is why all the contrast in the lyrics exist).”  She goes deeper into the outcome of the song by stating “You might be down, deep in a shitpit, so deep that you can’t see anything positive. But these heartbreaks make us stronger and they will unveil their purpose with time.”