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According to Night Tapes, their single “babygirl (like n01 else)” is a sonic imagining of the dark feminine – taking to Instagram, they write that this femininity “is fluid, violent, nurturing, monstrous, beautiful, chaotic, and whole.” That’s a whole lot of adjectives for one song, and big boots to fill. Despite the high sell by the band, it’s a promise they mostly manage to fulfil. “babygirl (like n01 else)” is reminiscent of Portishead’s “Sour Times”, or Massive Attack and Elizabeth Fraser’s “Teardrop”; think Women crooning ominously romantic ditties overlaying an unnerving trip-hop beat.
The song hails an upcoming album, “portals//polarities”, set for release on September 26. Released by Southeast London’s Night Tapes, a dream pop band that emerged from evening jams between housemates Max Doohan, Sam Richards and Iiris Vesik, they deftly craft delicately psychedelic, synth-spun soundscapes. Another of the recent singles, “pacifico”, was inspired by the Mighty Souls of Mischief’s “93 ‘Til Infinity”, given a haunted house treatment. Sampling the legendary hip-hop tune and reimagining it into a sweetly sung trip-hop bop lands Night Tapes slap bang into my good books.
Iiris Vesik, the voice of Night Tapes, lulls throughout “babygirl (like n01 else)” with a gentle, quiet threat. Almost baby-like, her saccharine-sweet, ultra-feminine vocals are paired with minimal instrumentation: dragging kick drums, a sparsely plucked guitar, and arpeggiated synths.
For a song depicting the chaos and beautiful contradiction of whatever exactly “dark femininity” is meant to be, the name “babygirl” in and of itself is apt. A term of affection, alongside a diminutive in the realest sense of the word, it does have intrinsic sexual connotations (the most memorable example of late is the eponymous film, starring Nicole Kidman, where an older woman is sexually liberated with the help of a hot younger man). There is much to be said for the infantilisation of grown women, but the title of the song, paired with Vesik’s unsettlingly ageless voice, both innocently pitched and icily commanding, wryly captures this irony.
The music video of “babygirl (like n01 else)” unfolds like a demonically bad trip. Hyper-saturated with the Twilight blue filter and filtered through grainy clusters of pixels, Night Tapes are interspersed with churning visions of flames, forests, and rolling blue seas. Vesik’s face morphs from an old woman to her now, wrinkles uncreasing, before shots of her as a young girl floats on screen.
Surprisingly absent when citing their influences for “babygirl (n01 else)” are any explicit trip hop mentions. The synths and slowness, alongside the subject matter (the terrifying enormity of what it means to be a girl), bear a startling likeness to Air’s The Virgin Suicides. The main inspiration for the tune was Madonna’s “Frozen” and Bjork’s “Hyperballad”; the brief was “simple, but captivating”. It is dreamy, bordering on nightmarish, with a 90s sound portending a post-apocalyptic future.
“babygirl (like n01 else)” feels like a haunting – it is tense, egg-shell fragile, and could shatter into a scream in a given moment. Whilst Night Tapes don’t give a specific meaning to the lyrics of the song, they establish a clear vibe: “This song is about a specific energy and feelings of wanting to possess//control that can accompany it. In the right amount and in the right place and time this energy is sexy as fu*k, when off balance it’s fu*king diabolical.” Sensual and spooky, the song accomplishes just that.
