Live Review: Explore digital intimacy in Baauer and Soleima's new clip for 'Company'

Hit play on BAAUER's latest single 'Company' and you'd be fair in thinking this isn't the same producer of rowdy trap banger 'Harlem Shake'. And yet, here we are with a fresh Baauer collab, in a new era for the muso as he explores the more intimate realms of pop and RnB. On his latest track, he embraces the sparseness of skandi-pop by working with one of the genre's rising stars, SOLEIMA, to blur the lines between human emotion and digital connection.

Embracing negative space more than ever before, the verses place Soleima's vocoder laden lyrics front and centre with her delicate delivery that feels like melodic ASMR. Stark silences are cushioned by warm chords, dense vocal harmony and Baauer's plethora of tactile samples and slippery SFX. Where the verses have you holding your breath among the quiet, the chorus takes it away with its broad 3D composition and lush sound design. 

Baauer's vision is taken a step further in its music video, directed by Jonathan Zawada he re-imagines the song's themes and pushes them to their most unsettling extreme. In his glossy animated style, half formed human robot hybrids imitate intimacy, or are they learning it?

The 21st century question of "does technology bring us closer together or does it act as another barrier to closeness?" feels too cliche to fit all of this hypercolour imagery. Instead, Baauer and Zawada want us to look at the tech itself alongside the feelings we express through it, and ask if the two are as separate as we think they are.

Of Baauer's latest run of releases, 'Company' is definitive of this playful nu-pop/rnb direction. These explorative and thoughtful new releases that prove the producer's ability to shift his weirdo production tastes across genres are more than enough reason to keep an eye on him as he worms his way into many a genre-bending Spotify playlist.

IMAGE: Supplied

Words by HOLLY O’NEILL

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