Anie Delgado Embodies Venus in “Daydream” Video Premiere

If you’re sick of the winter weather and want to be transported to a summery beach, look no further than LA-based pop artist Anie Delgado’s “Daydream” video, which is as ethereal as the song’s title promises. In the spirit of the New Year, Delgado sings about “new love, new life/no pain, no life/new you and I” in an infectious, uplifting melody with Studio 54 vibes as she dances and poses beside the ocean.

The song is, paradoxically, about “staying grounded and rooted in your daydreams,” says Delgado. It was inspired by an experience where she wanted a relationship to work out but also knew she’d be fine if it didn’t. “Got everything I needed/whether you take it or leave it/honey, I’ll be on my way,” she sings with sassy, R&B-inspired attitude. “I’m always dreaming/my open heart is beaming/when the skies are turning gray.” Delgado aimed to show vulnerability in her voice in the song, while the production made it sparkly and twinkly.

For the video, she took on the persona of Venus, the Roman goddess of love, whom she felt fit the spirit of the song. “I feel like she’s underrated in that people think she’s just the pretty goddess, but I think there’s a lot of power to being poised, being graceful, and that beauty she possesses,” she says. “Venus energy is being really confident in what you have going on.”

The video opens with Delgado emerging from beneath churning waves and stepping out onto the sand, the same way Venus was born out of sea foam. In a reference to the famous Botticelli painting “The Birth of Venus,” she stands in a giant pink shell in several shots. In others, she looks into a mirror and combs her hair, plays with pearl jewelry, and lies besides artfully arranged grapes, another reference to Roman mythology.

Aside from the goddess imagery, the image of the sea itself is an ode to the divine feminine. “I think the ocean is powerful and mysterious and similar to women,” she says. “It has that kind of silent power; it’s there, it’s beautiful, it’s sparkling, it’s powerful, and it doesn’t immediately scream its power to you.”

Because it was shot during the pandemic, the video was intentionally simple, with no additional actors. With just Delgado, the director, the director of photography, and her manager on set, she picked out her outfits and did her own hair and makeup. “We had to go on the highest tide and make sure it would be okay to shoot,” she remembers. “It was one of the more fun shoots I’d done because I was playing in the ocean most of the day.”

“Daydream” is the first single from a four-song EP coming out in April. The next track on the EP, “Dancing When the World is on Fire” — which she describes as a commercial pop song with world vibes — comes out in February, followed by an EDM-inspired song called “Cloud Nine” in March and then “Something Beautiful,” which she wrote by herself on her guitar in her room. “Each song is so different,” she says. “We wanted to give them their own life and give them each a vibe.”

Raised in Florida, Delgado went to a performing arts conservatory in New York City, then got into acting before deciding to dedicate herself to music and moving to LA. In 2019, she released her first single, “Galaxy,” which is based on a talk her friend gave her after a breakup about how a whole galaxy of everything you need is right within you. The song’s heavy production provides an otherworldly, almost trippy sound, and her friend Bass Savage created a remix that gives it a dark edge.

“It was kind of fun to just let him be creative,” she says. “I gave him the stems and said ‘do what you want with them,’ and when he stent back the song, I loved it and thought it could give ‘Galaxy’ a life in a club.”

In 2020, she released “Kaleidoscope,” a poppy song that compares falling in love to looking into a kaleidoscope: “The more you look at it, you get details and imperfections and good qualities; you find more and more things you love about the person,” she explains.

Her voice is sweet and angelic but also confident and self-assured in the vein of pop princesses like Ariana Grande, whose production has inspired her, along with Taylor Swift’s lyrics and Tame Impala’s floaty soundscapes. Her earliest idol, though, was Gloria Estefan, who used to buy dresses from her great aunt. “Being Cuban-American and seeing another Cuban-American take mainstream pop by storm has always been really inspiring to me,” she says.

Though she can’t go on tour now, she’s currently working with a company called ColorTV to create a virtual tour, which will feature her singing against the backdrop of different locations, where residents will get discounted tickets. “It’s all from my home — basically, I’ll be turning my living room into a stage — but the company has technology they developed to create these virtual locations,” she says. “As much as it can’t be a large, fully produced show like I could do if I were to go on a physical tour, I’m going to make it as visually exciting as I can.”

Follow Anie Delgado on Instagram for ongoing updates.

PREMIERE: Francie Moon “Feel All The Feelings” Music Video

Photo Credit: Come Here Floyd

Has your shadow self been hanging heavy in the past weeks? Now that we don’t have our regular routine to keep us in line, all the feelings have been rearing their awful heads. New Jersey-based psychedelic trio Francie Moon wrote and filmed the music video for “Feel All The Feelings” long before these times were fathomable, but the lyrics and mood of the track reflect the current reality of facing our shadow selves.

The first line asks if you can feel all the feelings (yes, I do) and the line “I’m a part of the sea,” could be a metaphor for the collective nature of the global pandemic we’re living through. “The truth ain’t misleading / It’s always calling us home” speaks to how many of us have gone home to take care of family, friends and ourselves. “Cause you are forgiving / I can see it in your eyes” illustrates the practice of mindfulness as we navigate each other’s freak outs the best we can.

The video was filmed on a cross-country trip to California during Francie Moon’s first West Coast tour in January by members Melissa Lucciola, Richie Samartin, and Adam Pumilia. The track is featured on their latest cassette release All The Same by Brooklyn label King Pizza Records, and is described by singer/guitarist Melissa Lucciola as touching “on feelings of just being overwhelmed and then remembering that no matter how crazy things feel, we can always count on the truth coming to the forefront and being a good compass. No matter what turns we take we’re always going to run into ourselves and what we really want eventually!”

The video features beautiful scenic imagery of their road trip, the band playing in a forest, and is closed out by a Lucciola smiling and falling in an empty drain pipe during the soothing outro guitar solo.

You can support Francie Moon + King Pizza Records on Bandcamp.

Sophie Coran Premieres Dreamy “Saltwater” Video

Film still by William DeJessa.

It’s easy to get lost in particular nooks of the Philly music scene. Within a few blocks radius of where I’m sitting, there’s a coffee shop that blasts Screaming Females in the morning, a basement venue with metal shows every other night, three tattoo shops, two vegan donut joints, and – inexplicably – an anarchist street artist who tags “gay chaos” on every mailbox in town. I do love this strange bubble of a neighborhood, but I’ll happily let Sophie Coran‘s “Saltwater” burst it, adding something fresh and unexpected to my small corner of this city.

Lauded on NPR as one of “10 Artists You Should Know from Philadelphia,” Coran describes herself as a “Noir & B” artist, incorporating elements of jazz, soul, and pop into her own admirably ambitious sound. She could rock a dive bar as easily as an expansive theater; her music is best accompanied by a grand piano and a brass ensemble, but she could make it work on an electronic keyboard just fine.

Sophie Coran started garnering attention around Philadelphia after releasing the All That Matters EP in 2018. Themed around her experience working in restaurants, the powerful EP is adorned with retro diner graphics. There’s an aesthetic sensibility to her work – her rooftop sessions pluck Lana Del Rey from Venice Beach and drop her on the deck of a Fishtown loft. Coran thrives when she channels her eclectic songwriting through visual means, so it’s no surprise that the new music video for her single “Saltwater” is so captivating. Directed by Philadelphia’s own William DeJessa of Rittenhouse Filmworks, “Saltwater” is dark, dreamy, and evocative.

In “Saltwater,” Coran describes the alienating experience of growing up: “I measure every thought in fear, it’s not the right one/And further from the shore I steer, lost in the ocean.” She’s not the first writer to compare loneliness to floating through the ocean, but her surprising musical arrangements make the concept feel more fresh. Its verses sound like a jazzier Billie Eilish with a wider vocal range; its choruses feel oddly victorious, despite their melancholy lyrics. If you have a short attention span, you’ll love Sophie Coran – her clever song structures will keep you on your toes.

The music video for “Saltwater,” equally glamorous as it is vulnerable, offers us a first look into what this next phase of Coran’s style might look like. Like a pop star, Coran is showered with sparklers, glitter and confetti. Then, against a backdrop of moving water, she looks like a mermaid as she’s “swimming upstream.” In these tight shots, Coran sings directly into the camera, inviting us into her world. But before we can dwell on this image of a star in the spotlight, the shot pans out to show a “behind-the-scenes” look at how the music video was filmed. In the midst of a dark film studio, Coran sits on a stool, illuminated by intense spotlights. The further we zoom out, the darker and lonelier Coran seems.

In a press release, director William DeJessa says, “I wanted to show a sense of nostalgia and yearning as well as a celebration of life.” It’s clever to break the fourth wall on “Saltwater,” because it allows us to see two sides of the musician: her burgeoning stardom and vulnerability are intertwined, inviting us to dwell on what artists – particularly, women solo acts – must work through before they find themselves drowning in a sea of glitter and confetti.

VIDEO PREMIERE: Kimberly Wyma “Hit and Run”

kimberlywymamusic

With the turn of winter and the fall of snow, everything is encased to appear more magical, more romantic. As the seasons change we’re here to kick of your week with the premiere of singer/songwriter Kimberly Wyma‘s video for “Hit and Run” from her EP “Escapistry.” It was filmed in the now New York City-based artist’s hometown of Grand Rapids, Michigan, the day after “a huge, magical blizzard.” We see Wyma running through a Narnia-like white forest and playing her heart out on a piano in an abandoned and graffiti-splattered building. The contradiction of the romance and brokedown palace quality of the video are both ethereal, always raw – much like the truth in the lyrics of a romance gone awry.

Watch “Hit and Run” below.