“I do know you need me. Clearly.”
Tove Lo, traditionally, has not as soon as faltered.
From the darker days stuffed with dangerous habits and damaged hearts on Queen of the Clouds, to the sexy depths of her Girl Wooden, shaking her “Disco Tits” and pursing her experimental Blue Lips, sharing the dance flooring with collaborators aplenty on Sunshine Kitty and boldly going unbiased with Grime Femme, the 36-year-old Swedish famous person comes dependably armed with earnest emotion, pop hooks aplenty and lyrical themes of lust, self-destruction and joyous abandon, making her considered one of as we speak’s high pop songwriters. (And lest we neglect, she co-wrote Ladies Aloud‘s “One thing New” early into her profession, for which we’re eternally grateful.)
SG Lewis, traditionally, has not as soon as faltered.
From offering a mirror ball-encrusted glimmer of hope within the worst of instances with 2021’s Instances, to discovering his footing on the music scene with everybody from Dua Lipa to Victoria Monét to Elton John, to flexing his inventive chops on AudioLust & HigherLove, the 29-year-old singer and producer has solely continued to reliably present glowing four-to-the-floor anthems for love and revelry on the dance flooring.
It’s maybe to nobody’s shock then that when the 2 forces unite, magic strikes.
It’s a confirmed partnership, as demonstrated on 2022’s Grime Femme with the euphoric “Name on Me” and cheeky “Pineapple Slice” (“I ready for tonight, ate a pineapple slice for you…”), in addition to final month’s “Love Bites” with freshly minted EDM competition queen Nelly Furtado, a flirty style of what was to return in June.
HEAT, out Friday (June 14), is Tove and SG’s first formal collaborative undertaking as a duo, with some further manufacturing from Completely Huge Extinct Dinosaurs – and it higher solely be the beginning of an ongoing collection. (Really, it’s begging for a right away return to the studio to spherical out the EP right into a LP.)
Clocking in at a good 15 and a half minutes, with all however one track passing the three:30 mark – in 2024, think about that! – HEAT is a start-to-finish slice of lust-fueled dance-pop perfection constructed for glassy-eyed flirting, spilled drinks and attractive hip grips on sticky summer time dance flooring.
The cocky title observe alone is an plain earworm, as charmingly teased for months by the 2 on social media, with SG adorably doing his greatest ally duties and lip syncing alongside the queer queen. “I do know you need me. Clearly. I already know…,” Tove playfully taunts. “You may’t take the warmth.”
If “Let Me Go OH OH” brings a little bit of Kylie‘s breathy ’00s Fever-era flirting to thoughts, there’s good purpose: “We wished to make one thing with an analogous temperature as Kylie’s ‘Can’t Get You Out of My Head’…horny, cool and hypnotic,” she explains. (It additionally serves as a superb template for what must be the eventual assembly of the minds between the three – let’s go OH OH.)
“Busy Lady,” in the meantime, feels just like the duo time-traveled again to 2007 to get their diploma at Bodyrox & Luciana College, recalling “Yeah Yeah” and “What Planet You On,” and a contact of Chelly’s “Took the Evening.” Tove says it’s written with “drag queens and sassy bitches” in thoughts, with SG including that they wished to “revive a few of that 2000’s soiled electro-house like Fedde le Grand or Mason, and TEED & I had labored on the right instrumental collectively for that function.” It additionally slides in effortlessly with the Brat-ty angle of this summer time’s greatest launch from Charli xcx.
“I’m good at what I do. Bitch, I’m higher than you,” Tove repeatedly declares. No disagreements right here!
And for a timeless closing contact, Tove and SG channel a really particular feeling – a “90’s trance second,” as SG describes – into “Need,” an ethereal finish of the EP, recalling acts like Above & Past, Ferry Corsten, Armin van Buuren and whoever else confirmed up on Ayumi Hamasaki‘s outdated trance remix albums, with only a trace of Swedish melancholy.
“I wished it to be actually emotional, one thing that may very well be performed on the finish of the evening. It felt like the right solution to shut off the EP,” SG provides.
With loads of sass, seduction and strut-worthy pulsations, HEAT feels just like the true collaborative center floor between the duo’s musical output: SG lifts Tove right into a brighter and bouncier soundscape, who in flip takes her good friend’s pulsations to new heights together with her knack for melodies, good songcraft and uninhibited queer vitality. The top result’s a win for us all.
The accompanying age-restricted music video for “HEAT” can also be the primary of 4 to return from David Wilson, capturing the spirit of the EP.
“With this EP we wished the visible facet to mirror the free, open and horny vitality we’ve put into the music, surrounded by our queer followers who impressed us to make these songs. So we reached out to the superb David Wilson, who’s very a lot part of the queer neighborhood in London. He had free reign to create an setting, the place we might all be feeling ourselves with out being censored in anyway. It was actually probably the most enjoyable I’ve had at a shoot,” Tove says.
“We wished the video to have a good time the queer neighborhood, and for the shoot itself to be an enormous sweaty occasion. As soon as we met David on Zom, we had full belief in his visions and gave him full inventive management. Tove has gotten so good at DJ’ing, and we performed B2B for a complete of 4 hours, it was a lot enjoyable!” SG provides.
“HEAT is a undertaking consisting of 4 music movies, one for each track of the HEAT EP. The movies are strung collectively by the narrative of Ali, a protagonist that journeys by means of ‘Membership Warmth’, a fictional, queer London nightclub. Every video we shot was a unique perspective on ‘Membership Warmth’; depicting the breadth of experiences in nightlife. The queer nightlife scene in London has fuelled and impressed me all through my complete grownup life, so I used to be past thrilled to be chosen because the director to deliver this to life. This can be a depiction of queer London evening life now: the queer scene in 2024, the place the non-binary queer crowd is the predominant drive. These are events that organically home the range in queer areas while additionally together with the binary. Everybody is well known. The purpose was to signify queer pleasure personified, uncensored and undiluted. Tove and SG have been a dream to work with,” the director went on to clarify.
They’re additionally such busy ladies this summer time, making the HEAT expertise an immersive one, together with a CLUB HEAT occasion in London final month, one final evening in West Hollywood, and one nonetheless to return at Glastonbury Competition. Hydrate accordingly: between BRAT, HEAT and Membership Shy, we’re going to be sweating all 12 months lengthy.
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Picture Credit score: Nikola Lamburov
