Guest
For the recording of their debut album, 22º Halo, enigmatic South London sister act Waterbaby transformed the Peckham flat that they share into both a studio and a perpetual film set. “While creating the album and all its accompanying videos, we turned our attic flat into a makeshift film set and slept in it for 365 days,” they explain. “For ‘Spiral’, We created an imaginary circus where the artist swings to and from reality on a thread, conflicted by the internal struggle of the introvert vs. the performance, the spectacle vs. its creation, and backstage vs. the spotlight.” Combining saturated VHS footage, esoteric imagery and digital processing, the duo have manifested their ornate electronic pop blend of folk ballads, choral music and kosmische as splashes of vivid colour and pixellated grain. ‘Spiral’ pairs the stately stomp of a 4AD-indebted soundscape with peals of ethereal vocals that are equal parts Eartheater and Elizabeth Fraser, positioning Waterbaby in that fertile overlap between experimental electronics and melodramatic vocal pop expressionism. The sister’s singular aesthetic is expanded with No Subject Magazine, an experimental art publication produced by Waterbaby that collates selected stills from their video works, reproductions of lyrics from their songs, original photography and graphic design. Like a distorted transmission from somewhere out of time, Waterbaby serve as our conduits, lightning rods for pop music and art of a more mystical variety. ‘Spiral’ is out now and is taken from 22º Halo, which arrives on May 12 via untitled (recs). You can find Waterbaby on Instagram, Bandcamp and at their website.
