Voyeur is a mysterious new electronic project that’s just appeared on the Richmond musical landscape with a debut EP entitled Little Death, scheduled for release on November 18. The first single from Little Death is “Until The Day I Die,” and we are pleased to present the premiere of that video right here on RVA Magazine. Voyeur’s sound is full of exquisite atmosphere and minimally funky grooves, over which the group’s sole member, Robert Seawell, croons soulfully, adding a strong foundation to what otherwise might fade into ambient background music.
Voyeur is a mysterious new electronic project that’s just appeared on the Richmond musical landscape with a debut EP entitled Little Death, scheduled for release on November 18. The first single from Little Death is “Until The Day I Die,” and we are pleased to present the premiere of that video right here on RVA Magazine. Voyeur’s sound is full of exquisite atmosphere and minimally funky grooves, over which the group’s sole member, Robert Seawell, croons soulfully, adding a strong foundation to what otherwise might fade into ambient background music. The overall effect draws obvious comparison to the work of electronic minimalist singer/songwriter James Blake, as well as the kind of music that was called dubstep in the UK, before American DJs like Skrillex turned it into moshpit music for summer festivals–the spooky, nocturnal ambience of groups like Burial, Kode9, and Digital Mystikz.
Photo by Evana Roman
Voyeur also brings in a bit more of an American influence, with elements of chillwave and even psychedelic folk showing through at points in his music, and this is reflected well by the video for “Until The Day I Die.” Shot in a wooded area near the James River, which certainly appears to be on or near Belle Isle, by director Abraham Vilchez-Moran (The Trillions, Eternal Summers), the video captures Seawell wandering through pastoral landscapes, crooning the song’s lyrics as he perches on abandoned cement structures and sits overlooking the river, sometimes nearly dangling his head into the water. The main focus of the video, though, are the natural landscapes in which it takes place, and the juxtaposition of these images with the haunting ambience of Voyeur’s music creates a hushed, foreboding beauty–a phrase that could also be used to describe this song. Seawell explains the mood behind “Until The Day I Die,” and Little Death as a whole, as documenting “my own process of realizing the nature of mortality and my own identity-death, and eventually finding will to live and make decisions without a defined value system or ultimate knowledge.”
Voyeur’s Little Death will be released on November 18. We don’t have a link for preorders at the moment, but keep an eye on the project’s Facebook and Soundcloud pages for updates.
By Andrew Necci
