Photo by Georgia Mitropoulos
In the kaleidoscopic haze of our modern dystopia, comes forth Dräger, a manifestation of polymath auteur Spencer Draeger. Venturing through the echoes of yesteryears to whisper tales of tomorrows, Dräger’s touch reverberates with the heartbeat of a generation drenched in restless introspection and sombre reverie.
His new wistful synthpop offering, “Midnight Mystery”, was inspired by a big move to the West Coast after a messy breakup. Draeger found himself undergoing a personal renaissance in a new city, yet doggedly clinging to the past. Summer-induced insomnia and late-night anxiety also served as a purpose, noting that the heat keeps people ‘primal and wild.’ The song marked a turning point in his life, as well as a creative epiphany.
“A lot of emotions hit me in the middle of the night,” he explains. “I’ve always felt we are more in touch with our feelings when the sun goes down, or perhaps we are just more emotional and impulsive. I’d get this creeping wonder about the life I left behind in New York. It was a wonder about the person I left behind and also just with myself, had I made the right call in moving? It was a very dark period of just not really knowing what I was embarking on.”
In this unpretentious and earnest vignette, we’re taken on a reminiscent voyage to straightforward 80s performance reels. Dräger pours his soulful lamentations on a stage, drenched in a mist of memory, invoking bittersweet yearnings through a rose-coloured haze. As a testament to his unyielding creative spirit, the video and song was penned, recorded, mixed, mastered, orchestrated and fine-tuned by the auteur himself in his Brooklyn home studio, ensuring the vision remains purely his.
“We have adapted to a voyeuristic, visual centric lifestyle and amidst the vanity and other byproducts of fighting for your screen time, I think to fully tell a story of a song you must now show people what you mean with a video,” he says. “I’d hate the sentiment to be lost in translation with someone else telling my story. But I also, just like with songwriting, love the process of creating and exploring other ways to express it all.”
Watch the video for “Midnight Mystery” below:
Drawing threads from the rebellious spirit of punk, the dream-laden hums of 80’s synthpop, and the trippy embraces of the 90’s psychedelic tapestry, we await Dräger’s sophomore album, Delusions of Grandeur, set to unveil in 2024. The album promises to jest gracefully with weighty motifs of tech, romance, and a society perched on the edge of an unfolding saga, treading the line between satire and sarcasm. Echoing the vibes of Crystal Castles, Ladytron, and Chromatics, it beckons to us as a siren song of synthpop magnificence.
“Midnight Mystery” is also available on Spotify, Listen below:
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