WATCH: feeo - 'feels like we're getting older doesn't it'

Let me introduce you to one of the best tracks you'll hear this week... you're welcome in advance. Oxford's experimental neo-soul singer and producer feeo is back (rejoice) with feels like we're getting older doesn't it, the title track of her upcoming EP, due 4th June via local label Upcycled Records. The track was co-produced by the label's own (and local folk musician) Niko O'Brien. As ever, the production pulls together sounds sourced from far afield into a stunning tapestry. It's transcendent, and feels like we're seeing yet another side of feeo as an artist after recent singles End Song and Yeti. 

On the track, feeo shares: “‘feels like we’re getting older doesn’t it’ is about being a part of a generation who are too terrified of the future to move forward. Instead we eternalise ourselves in the eyes of those in our present. Both scared to grow up and yet constantly rejecting the naivety of our younger selves. When we were 15, our love letters felt like infatuation and lingering eye contact. Now that we’re older they start to feel a bit more like relationships that only exist when it’s nighttime. Living in the space between a fear of abandonment and total indifference. Sex is now just a token of our physical existence - gone in the morning.”

There's so much to love on the Oxford scene at the moment (as always) and feeo is a reaaaaaally exciting artist - a student of both fine art and computer science, she has a fierce creativity which manifests itself beyond the music. She once again created the video for the track herself, combining artistic camera shots with CGI rendered visualisations. 

“For the video I really wanted to explore the idea of performative physical intimacy as both an act of selfishness and selflessness. In order to perform, we must be perceived by someone else-the affirmation of self is totally tied to how others see us. I was thinking particularly about my own performance of femininity. The idea is that the video is totally self absorbed, totally revolving around me, and yet is a performance that only serves its purpose when perceived by others.”

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WATCH: feeo - 'end song'

Oooooh, a new feeo tune! Kicking the week off in glorious style with this one. End Song is her first new music for 2021, taken from the upcoming debut EP feels like we're getting older doesn't it, due for release on 4th July via Oxford's Upcycled Sounds label. (And yes, it does. Somehow I have a 10 year-old nephew as of a couple of days ago... how?!) I loved Yeti last year and knew I'd be in for a treat with this one... so good. It's unlike anything else you'll listen to this week. A rich bed of influences from jazz, folk and reggae combine in the production of this dystopian tune. 

On the track, feeo shares: "End Song is about the stretch of time just before the apocalypse. The calm before the storm. Like a waiting room. Everyone sitting around reading magazines, checking their watches. "Shouldn't this have ended by now?" Looking around the room waiting for God to put his big sandalled foot down and blow us all up."

"Sonically, I wanted things to feel really wonky and broken. I was imagining going into a half-collapsed pub during World War 3, the air thick with dust and radiation. In the back corner is this band drunkenly playing Dub. The drummer keeps falling off his stool. The bassist is missing a couple of strings. The nuclear fallout has gone to everyone's heads. I played bess myself in order to get the jarring metallic twanging that could only be achieved by a total novice." 

And on the music video, which was directed, shot and edited by feeo herself, she adds: "this past year has led me to believe that the end of the world will involve copious amounts of pornography, Benzodiazepine, meme-based conspiracy theories and internet side scroller games; sandwiched between instagram stories full of riots, hyper-consumerism and things exploding. I spliced videos I filmed on phones and webcams with found footage from the internet, in an attempt to recreate the feeling of watching the apocalypse through a laptop screen." 

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WATCH: feeo - 'Yeti'

I'm really digging this track. Yeti is the latest single from Oxford producer and songwriter feeo. At 20, she's currently pursuing a dual honours degree in computing and fine art in the city. At first listen, I was blown away by the sublime vocals and I am currently being mesmerised by the live version I've just stumbled across for BBC Introducing in Oxford here. She describes that the track is "an exploration of the multiplicity of the human 'self' and its relationship with our concepts of 'other'. Using a myth based narrative, I wanted to look at the subconscious, primal self and depict the duality between this and the real world. I was particularly interested in looking at the parallels between myth and reality and the idea that myth is a projection of our deeper human selves." 

My love for the track grew on reading that the sounds throughout have been meticulously put together from field recordings, kind of Cosmo Sheldrake-esque in process. Engineered by Niko Brian and Hannah Jacobs of the local label/studio Upcycled Sounds, various sounds have been twisted together to form the track. feeo explains that "some of my favourite sounds on 'Yeti' Niko had collected when he was travelling and working in the Himalyas, a purposeful reference to the context of the cultural mythology surrounding the Yeti. These include a synth pad made from the glacial sound of ice melting and a dissonant siren made from a sample of a traditional Nepalese horn. It was important to use sounds that had a context that related to the concept itself - even if subtle, these details contribute to the narrative." 

The track's video is created by Kathryn Attrill and is thematically reflective of the subject matter of the track. About the video, feeo shares that "Kathryn was really into the idea of using salt to represent the tangible and the physical and then contrasting that with digital 3D animations to represent the intangible and metaphysical [...] the shot where I'm regurgitating the fabric was an idea taken from these photos of fake exorcisms by Mediums in the Victorian times. I really liked the idea of repurposing something that was once used to trick people into believing myth - as it plays with the idea of the Yeti being a mythical creature that we continue to pursue despite lack of proof. I find it fascinating that humans have so long sought after projections of ourselves in the unknown." 

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