SADAF and Whitney Mallett
NYC-based producer SADAF has shared an uneasily idyllic video for her single "Stillness," which pairs the song's foundational interplay between irruption and suture with a disorienting visual journey through what many would consider paradise. Shot on location at the beach and adjacent coastal regions in Maui, the clip was co-produced and co-directed by the artist in collaboration also NYC-based writer/artist Whitney Mallett, propelled by an unpredictably fast-slow, open-closed internal arrangement that matches well with the lyrics' pointedly psychological narrative. The track itself is built around a rattling drum machine sequence that's simultaneously inchoate and all-too-precise in its scatteredness, shot through with an internal dissonance between thinking-out-loud narration and free jazz-esque vocals: "This is not a nightclub/This is not a nightmare."Sadaf H. Nava gave THUMP some backstory for the collaboration via email: "The video begins with a body, washed up on shore, at mercy of ocean waves, inanimate," she said. "The body's stillness contrasts the spastic cuts, pulsating between underwater and above water, suggesting the coexistence of chaos and control, confrontation and relief. I wanted to underline that strange calmness that lives inside anxiety.""Stillness" is out now on Brooklyn's HOSS Records. Sadaf will play MoMA PS1's Warm Up series tomorrow, Saturday August 13, alongside Special Request, Doc Scott, Mumdance b2b Logos, and SHYBØI.Follow Alexander on Twitter.