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Music

Watch CuckooLander's Poised and Perfect Video for "Beating Myself Up"

Rostam (ex-Vampire Weekend) leant a hand on this clean production from English songbird releasing on Charli XCX's imprint Vroom Vroom Recordings.

CuckooLander's got a lot of impressive cosigns by way of association. For instance: she co-wrote The Hunger Games song "Kingdom" with Simon Le Bon from Duran Duran, Charli XCX, and ex-Vampire Weekend wiz Rostam Batmanglij. For her latest track, "Beating Myself Up," the singer—born Holly Hardy—reteamed with Rostam on production and released this delicate sonic missive via Charli's imprint Vroom Vroom Recordings. While the audio dropped earlier this year, below is the premiere of the video which is as delicately paced and poised as the tune it accompanies.

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It's a sort of parsed back, baroque-pop (which sounds like an oxymoron really) and then at two minutes 55 the song turns on its head and CuckooLander comes off like a soulful 60s singer singing her heart out in some smoky speakeasy basement. Which makes it perfectly jarring to see her belting out from the corseted confines of Georgian garb.

"The video is inspired by Royal Doulton figurines," explains the Dorset-born singer. "Myself and [director] Christopher Waggott wanted to bring their melancholic demeanour to life through a one-shot spinning illusion.Throughout the song there's an arpeggiated music box riff subtly nodding to classical music, so I wanted to transform into multiple members of a Georgian period band, highlighting the musical changes as the song constantly progresses. Then there's Millie the German short-haired Pointer because no CuckooLander music video is complete without a guest animal appearance.”

Watch below:

"Beating Myself Up" is out now on Vroom Vroom Recordings.