Folk-pop duo @ released their debut album ‘Mind Palace Music’ back in February, immediately picking up a swathe of fans with their gentle, largely acoustic songs. Less than a year later, they’re back with new music - a song called ‘Soul Hole’ - which flips everything you think you know about them on its head.
The new track takes those folk melodies, cuts them up and loops them, sticks a jittery drum beat under them, adds some woozy synth, and slaps some hyper-pop vocals on the top. It’s not what you’d expect, but it’s not not what you want.
"The vocal loop of this song was found as a recording which I have no recollection of making”, says the duo’s Victoria Rose. “It was quantised and developed into a track about going to the ‘Soul Hole’, a place where worldly desires and materiality do not exist”.
Adding to the dizzying sound of the track, the video adds an extra layer with a confusing promotional animation for something called ‘Car World’. Explains Roses’s musical partner Stone Filipczak: “Car World is a community-led organisation for the greater good, on a mission to rescue the Attendants - an alien species in an alternate universe”.
“This mission is headed by William Banks”, he adds, “a Brooklyn comedian and the to-be saviour of Car World - which is Earth World in Arm Universe. Most further questions can be answered in video, which does its best to cover the broad strokes of Car World, its mission, and its origin”.
So now you know. ‘Soul Hole’ is the first track to be released from new EP ‘Are You There God? It's Me, @’, which is out on 12 Jan. The duo will be in the UK for live shows in February.
Watch the video for ‘Soul Hole’ below.
