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Music

Welcome to the Surreal Pastel World of "Infinity Street" by Sui Zhen

This Melbourne artist was placed on planet earth to make our lives better.

Ugh. Everything about this video and this song is perfect. But first, let's meet Sui Zhen (first name Becky) a Melbourne based musician whose talents are not limited to making music. She also DJs under the name Susan—so far so standard—and she directs, produces, and edits music videos (including the one above). And paints and draws. And she takes amazing pictures. Oh. So Sui Zhen is here to make us all feel that much more unproductive?

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Au contraire! Sui Zhen was placed on the planet to make our lives better. "Infinity Street" is what I call clean-pop, the kind of music that revels in minimalist, synth-driven sonics, with vocals that are cute and coy without being too saccharine. Or, to put it comparatively, this sounds like early Lykke Li having a tea party with Grimes in Tokyo.

Visually this video is very Toilet Paper Magazine (the brainchild of Italian artist Maurizio Catalan), and very reminiscent of the Spanish director crew CANADA (whose work is best exemplified by possibly the best video of all time, El Guincho's "Bombay").

For her part Sui Zhen had this to say about the song and how the video came together: "'Infinity Street' is a song I wrote whilst looking out the window of my studio. Hickford Street appears to go on until infinity like many of the gridded streets in Melbourne do, and at a certain time of the afternoon the sun reflects on the glass panes so brightly I can see two copies of the sun.

"The song evokes a toned down Total Recall/Fantastic Planet inspired vision of the future where people, desperation, and vulgarity, interplanetary travel is possible and the world is no longer the rich blue and green we once knew it to be. For the video I wish to investigate the solitary existence of Susan within this world, the future that looks like today, only, something is not quite right."

Susan, if you haven't guessed by now, is Sui Zhen's alter-ego / imagined character. Sui Zhen's whole upcoming album centers around this said character. The video speaks for itself, but let me leave you with a few things I learned while watching it:

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1. Color-coordinating your socks with your highball is so chic.

2. Facemasks from your local drug store are truly unsettling to look at once applied and ideal for scaring your roommates or boyfriend/girlfriend.

3. Cycling shorts are really just Spanx.

4. Neoprene pastel sweatshirts continue to be so hot right now.

5. Below is my favorite still from the video because it reminds me daydreaming about stuffing face at my desk.

Sui Zhen's album, Secretly Susan, will be released in 2015 via Two Bright Lakes.

Kim Taylor Bennett threw out her Spanx last week. Curves cannot be constrained! Follow her on Twitter.