New York, NY (Top40 Charts) Cardiff-based songwriter Knomad Spock (aka Samatar "Sam" Elmi) has revealed a brand new cinematic video for his sumptuous debut single 'Papillon' which is out now.
Directed by Euan Baker, the slick video compiles a collection of slow-moving shots around London, as high-colour city scales and beautiful cinematography are juxtaposed against the organic and earthy folkiness of the track.
Commenting on the video, Baker says: "After a hiatus of around 4 years, I was immediately hooked on the idea of illustrating this song for Knomad Spock. I felt an instant connection to the organic rawness of the music and knew that the industrial wastelands juxtaposed against the backdrop of the music would compliment each other perfectly. It was a pleasure to work with both Sam and Stew and I'm looking forward to more collaborations in the future."
"I just really like Euan's work and the contrast between the urban visuals set against this really folky song works so well," says Elmi of the visuals. "For all the more exotic nomadic places like deserts and islands that contributed to the landscape of this record, we're still very much working class kids from the inner city. It was where I discovered folk music; walking around the town at night with a smoke and a walkman with Dylan and Nick
Drake tapes."
Sam Elmi is an enigmatic mixed-race British-Somali poet, rapper and neofolk singer-songwriter, who explores musical genres as extended analogies for his own multiethnic heritage. Rooted as deeply in the northern British working class community that raised him, as he is in the Somali nomadic traditions of his inheritance, as a songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, and in true nomadic keeping, Knomad Spock blurs the borders between punk, rap, folk, jazz and the avant garde.
Elmi's poetry has been published widely in the UK, with his debut collection Portrait of Colossus forthcoming in 2021 with groundbreaking British poetry publishers Flipped Eye Press, with his 2017 hip-hop EP, Preludes, released on renowned UK label SFDB Records followed by remixes with Chester P (Athens in Mordor, 2020).
'Papillon' serves as the first taste of his sublime and ambitious forthcoming debut album, scheduled for spring 2021. The album will be released via Hinterland Collective, a new label formed as part of LIFE drummer Stewart Baxter's platform for creative projects, collaborations, artistic outlet, music, and design from a handpicked collective of northern artists.
The single has so far received early support from a range of blogs and radio stations including BBC
Radio Wales, For The Rabbits, Basement Scene, Best In New Music, Alt Corner, Uber Rock and more. Further details of the debut album TBC over the coming months.
