NEWS: Santigold returns with futuristic ‘High Priestess’ video – God Is In The TV – God Is In The TV

Santigold has returned with her new song, High Priestess, and an accompanying video short.

The video short is a stand-alone piece that evokes the emotions and themes of High Priestess, with skittering beats, glacial synths and quick-fire vocals, it blurs the lines between rap, punk and synth wave and pulses with a primal release. Confined by the pandemic and isolated from her creative community, Santi went inward to reconnect with her personal strength and purpose to create this invocation to gather your powers.

Santi shares the songs inspiration and creation:

I had started working on this beat and I didnt have anything in mind for a topic, I just knew I wanted to do a sort of rap punk song (as dangerous as that sounds). My buddy Ray Brady and I started working on something, trying to add in all the elements that made sense, kicks, subs, new wave synths. Boys Noize ended up bringing something super cool that really built the song and made me get even more excited about it. It was coming along quickly, until it wasnt. The punk rock energy, the angst, that I wanted to come across wasnt quite there. I tried adding guitar and a live drum kit, and that was a big red buzzer X. I ended up tagging in Psymun (Simon Christensen) who brought in Ryan Olson, and they brought the final missing element. The energy I was looking for couldnt be the old version of punk rock, it had to be the future sound of punk rock. They brought the angst, the push and pull that was missing, but it was very fresh sounding and totally unexpected. It all came together in a way I could never have imagined when we started, but it was exactly what I set out to make. I want to make music that sounds like the past and the future all in one; music that makes you feel safe enough to jump in, but then takes us on a journey to where we needed to go but have never even heard of. I want my music to be the bridge.

I love working in this way, a communal effort, a meeting of minds and hearts to make something that is a true collaboration, more than any of the single parts themselves. For me, music is about community, its a way to connect, both in the making of it and in the listening to it. I made this song over the past two years during the pandemic, and was desperate for this type of connection. I started working on it in my studio with Ray a few weeks before the first lockdown in 2020, but after that, I was completely by myself in a room. Part of the time, I was in a room in a cabin in the middle of the woods in Canada, completely isolated. Technology was amazing though, because I felt like I was hanging out with these guys the whole time. My engineer recorded me on my computer in my studio from afar. Boys Noize and I hung out everyday on Zoom and talked and laughed more than wed had a chance to in years. I worked with Simon for the first time in this way, over Zoom with us in different countries, and immediately figured out what I love about him as a producer. It was like teleporting a vibe into the studio, being able to sit for hours face to face working on songs together.

I had also been in just Mom mode for months, and it was like finding gold to have found a cabin to escape to during the days, to run away and be with music and friends after having not had the opportunity to do that for months on end. It literally saved my spirit. And that brings us to the name of the song. I called this song High Priestess because this song was about my greatness. I needed to be a witness to myself at that point, calling out my own power, my own fortitude, my own wisdom, because I felt like I had become disconnected from it, having been stripped out of the rhythm of life that I had cultivated for myself, and thrust into this smaller, one-dimensional version of myself, grounded and isolated for too long. The lyrics are fun though, rap lyrics in general, boastful, cocky, but thats what I was talking about underneath it all.

High Priestessis her first solo release since 2018.Santigolds songs are entire worlds meticulously built, brick by brick, by a master architect who incisively speaks to the present while shaping the future. In the midst of all the struggles of the past couple of years, she shares, I decided to create the future, to look towards where we are going, to create beauty and pull towards that beauty. I need that for myself, but its also there for whoever else needs it.

Photo credit: Frank Ockenfels

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NEWS: Santigold returns with futuristic 'High Priestess' video - God Is In The TV - God Is In The TV