Ashton Mills is making his mark as one of Canada's most promising young hip-hop and R&B artists with his new music video for “PAPER BOATS (OFF THE FLOOR).”
The Toronto native brings smooth guitar chords and dreamy piano notes in this special studio version of the track off his debut project YOU WATCHED ME LOSE MY MIND, which dropped late last year.
The rising artist flexes his multi-hyphenate side as the video shows him playing every instrument featured in the song. Mills wrote, produced, and performed the track entirely on his own. The visual, shot by Toronto's Plus Ultra Studios, displays the artist's creative process and development of his incredibly varied sound construction, featuring the drums, keys, guitar, and Mills’ vocals.
Not unfamiliar with Toronto's music scene, Mills is a songwriter, composer and multi-instrumentalist who has produced and played for several artists, such as Jazz Cartier, Amir Obe, CMDWN, Sean Leon, and Eli Sostre. YOU WATCHED ME LOSE MY MIND was his first release as a singer.
Mills tells Complex that the original version of “PAPER BOATS” started off on the piano and evolved with synths and experimental sounds throughout his music process. “In terms of this visual, I like presenting ideas in unconventional ways but given the tempo, chords, and types of sounds I used in the original, it felt natural to work backwards from that and do something more clean cut and streamlined. It eventually became the video you see here,” he says.
Watch Ashton Mills’ new music video for “PAPER BOATS (OFF THE FLOOR)” above.
