Who are we? What are we? Questions such as these, attempting to peer beyond the existential veil of life, are at the core of the popular cable television series Westworld. The sci-fi western, based on its namesake 1973 film, explores a lawless, pre-programmed world in which humans live among and interact with "hosts," robots built to look, speak, and act like us to the point of indistinguishability—a painstaking process seen in its eerie yet breathtaking opening credits.If you took that sequence and gave it a rave-ready update, it would probably look something like Citizenn's music video for "Ladies Free B4 Midnight," the track off his recent Say It Like You Mean It EP on fledgling label ABODE. Like the Westworld theme, "Ladies Free B4 Midnight" is soft, sad, and spacious. Citizenn's self-directed vision includes faceless (at times headless) mannequins suspended in patterned formations beneath waves of flashing lights—things take off even more once the song drops into a more dancefloor-friendly broken beat.Citizenn tells THUMP over email, "Watching old rave videos from Doncaster was the main stimulus when I went to make the video. They all had this weird, dystopian vibe which I wanted to capture but strip it back to its essence so set against stark backgrounds, unlimited coffee in one hand and Marlboro lights in the other, I went to work."Watch "Ladies Free B4 Midnight" above. Say It Like You Mean It is out now.
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