Federico Nessi, the creative force behind the Bowie-pilfered moniker Be My Wife, returns with his hypnotically disorienting new single and accompanying visual, “Me Cuesta,” from the forthcoming EP, To Deliver a Feeling. Traversing an artistic map that spans from Miami to Buenos Aires and is now firmly anchored in Paris, Nessi cultivates an aesthetic steeped in angular eccentricity and the avant-garde intrigue of post-punk, minimal synth explorations, and nocturnal no-wave sensibilities.
Me Cuesta grapples deeply and poetically with identity and belonging, acting as both a love letter and a farewell missive to Argentina, Nessi’s ancestral home, still haunting him after decades spent abroad. Here, displacement and the elusive nature of acceptance weave into hypnotic rhythms he’s dubbed ‘tropi-goth,’ a seductive and unlikely blend of alternative reggaeton, minimal wave, and cumbia-flavored reverberations. Amidst this curious fusion, a distorted guitar moans plaintively, carving raw emotional currents through the sultry atmospherics.
Director Antoine Asseraf brings a striking duality to life in the Paris-filmed visual counterpart to the track, juxtaposing two versions of Federico: one forever itinerant, suitcases perpetually packed; the other reluctant and entrenched, resisting each forced goodbye. Everyday objects are ritualistically arranged, turned into sacred relics before being neatly, almost mournfully, tucked away. It brings to mind the video for Tuxedomoon’s Jinx: maddening, claustrophobic, and full of pathos.
Asseraf toys thoughtfully with spiritual materialism, unpacking how attachments thin with each new uprooting. References to 90s-era music videos and the performance art provocations of Francis Alÿs and Vito Acconci lend a deeper art-house resonance, suggesting existential queries lurking beneath mundane routines.
Me Cuesta is a compelling meditation on transient identity, elegantly framed by Be My Wife’s charming and experimental style, suspended between heartfelt confession and existential ambiguity. This release signals Nessi as a talent able to draw authentic emotional tension from the quiet friction between belonging and perpetual wanderlust.
Watch the video for “Me Cuesta” below:
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