Vlossom is a new electro pop collaboration between two acclaimed Australian musicians — Nick Littlemore, best known for his work with multi-platinum acts Empire of the Sun and PNAU and Alister Wright, the frontman of Aussie indie rock act Cloud Control. Interestingly, the project can trace their origins to rather a serendipitous moment: while walking down the street in Adelaide, Littlemore bumped into Wright and immediately proposed that they make an album together. “He had this exuberance that shone through as he approached me, and right away I felt compelled to offer myself up for the slaughter,” Littlemore says in press notes.
Several months later, the duo met up for their first writing and recording session, during which Littlemore played a nubmer of backing tracks he’d recently created, including a few pieces made with Tim Lefebvre, best known for his work with David Bowie. “Without really talking or anything, Nick threw me straight in and had me sing over all these instrumentals,” Wright recalls. “I ended up getting so lost in it, and just singing whatever came into my head at the time.” The end result is trance-inducing material that effortlessly meshes pop, psych rock and electronic music into something that’s strange and multi-sensory — a body of work that reportedly possesses a distinct texture, temperature, color and even smell.
The duo’s Vlossom debut EP is slated for release next year, and the EP’s first single is the lush and hypnotic “Catch Your Breath.” Centered around shimmering synth arpeggios, a sinuous bass line, a motorik-like groove, Wright’s ethereal and plaintive vocals and a dance floor friendly hook that sonically brings Daft Punk’s Random Access Memories to mind, as the duo meshes sleek, electronic production with with warm, live instrumentation featuring musicians Littlemore met through his work with Elton John. And while being a club banger, the track thematically speaks to a metaphorical loss of composure. “It’s that feeling of seeing a thing of absolute beauty, whether it’s a girl or guy or plant or animal, and being brought into a heightened reality,” Littlemore says in press notes. “For the most part our everyday lives are fairly menial, so those moments when we do lose our breath are really something to dwell on.”
Directed by Nicolas Randall, the recently released video for “Catch Your Breath” is a vividly colored and gorgeous fever dream, filmed at a haunting and eerie mausoleum in Los Angeles.
“The clip was directed by the incomparable Nicolas Randall, a visionary director whose understanding of colour and movement is second to none,” Littlemore says of the video treatment. “It was shot in an amazing mortuary; the song deals with crossing over to parallel dimensions. Nicolas played with this concept in this location, breathing wondrously strange energy into a lifeless place, uber-styled and choreographed by masters in their field.”