French-Vietnamese hip-hop producer Nodey is one of the leading lights of a group of artists looking to challenge the way all of Asia and its myriad cultures are viewed by the West. Working closely with friend and collaborator Tianzhuo Chen (a visual artist and pioneer in his own right), Nodey has spent the last few years using his music to achieve that goal, combining the bleeding edge of futuristic trap with the traditional Vietnamese music he was raised on.
Now he's gearing up for the release of his as-yet-untitled debut album (recorded between Shanghai and Ho Chi Minh City and due for release in the coming months), and today he's unveiling the visuals for the album's second single, "Krishna". Presenting his own brand of cyberpunk, the visuals for Nodey's new single capture a vision of the not-too-distant future in which much of the planet has been abandoned, save for a scant few individuals left to roam the earth.
The story behind the track is just as interesting. As Nodey himself explains in greater detail below, he first presented the futuristic, trap-leaning instrumental to an Indian singer called Saiam who was inspired to sing a 900-year-old Soufi poem called "Zehaal E Miskeen" over the track:
"The starting impulse of Krishna happened in Varanasi during the shooting of my first videoclip Ghost. For the first time of my life, I drank a weed-infused Indian milkshake called Bhang Lassi. Varanasi is also a wonderful and inspiring city, one of the most ancient in the world. It's more than 5000 years old, you feel like in Game Of Thrones there. I've bathed in the Ganges, I've seen incinerated human corpses, I've been carried away on a magnificent and incredible trip. There, I met Saiam, a local traditional singer. The beat I played reminded him of a 900-year-old Soufi poem—'Zehaal E Miskeen'—which he sang on it."
Watch exclusively above.
