Under the moniker Hemi Hemingway, Aotearoan/New Zealand auteur Shaun Blackwell has released the exciting thrum of ‘(To Be) Without You’, a vibrant enigmatic track that is luminsicent as it is thrilling.
With Hemingway’s deep sonorous vocals that shake the foundations and a motorik beat, the track is filled with a luscious instrumentation including soaring saxophones and a throbbing electronic pulse.
Hemingway says of the track:
I was thinking a lot about a trip I took to Greece in late 2022. In hindsight, there were signs that my life was really about to change; I was moving back to New Zealand, and I couldn’t admit it but my marriage was about to end. When I was writing this song the energy of it reminded me of Greece – especially Athens; the heat on the stone at night, the dark and empty alleys, beautiful people moving everywhere and lots of exposed skin. There was a mysterious timelessness to the city; it felt like a place that knows everything about you the moment you step foot there. I was carrying a hidden sadness while I was there, and it knew.
The delivery is threaded through with an aching melancholia, a counterpoint to the immensely danceable beat. The drama and presence, the sheer theatricality of the delivery, has elements of Depeche Mode, Bryan Ferry and ABC: evoking a late night red velvet lounge crooner in a room filled with Absinthe, smoke and cheap regrets.
The track comes with a vivid and immersive video directed by Adam Joseph Browne capturing the operatic drama and Hemingway’s enigmatic presence. Hemingway says of the themes:
The idea for the video came about one morning while I was on a run; I looked up at this stadium light in the park where I was running and noticed that it wasn’t a perfect cylinder, but that it had many small sides. It towered above and reminded me of a Greek column. I realised I was seeing these flashes of my old life in amongst the landscape of my new life in New Zealand, and had been for a while. In my mind I’d been seeing this dark, shadowy figure stalking me . Adam, the director, and I call her The Apparition – who was played so perfectly by Kelsey Magan – and I realised that she was this personification of my unprocessed feelings around my separation and leaving London. The video depicts me trying to cope with life while being stalked by The Apparition, and becoming more aware of her until she makes me face her; and only through that confrontation do I really come out better off.
The result is something quite spectacular:
‘(To Be) Without You’ is out now via PNKSLM Recordings. You can download and stream here and through the link below, and heralds an album on the way.
Feature Photograph: Lewis Ferris
