(Photo by Gwenny Coomand of GNY Photography) With “Sunbird”, Belgian artist Psy’Aviah reveals the second single from his forthcoming “Bittersweet” album “that seems to be heading towards intimate pop electronica realms with an up-tempo edge”. We couldn’t have described it better than the band’s label Alfa Matrix did.

For this quite autobiographical song revealing the extreme addictive side of passion and devotion, Yves Schelpe worked together with Oliviya Nicole (professional singer in the Bulgaria and finalist of “The Voice”) to mix her distinctive vocals with Moog bass & synth arrangements. Also invited to offer cello parts was Polina Faustova.

We asked Yves Schelpe how he got in touch with Oliviya Nicole. Yves: “Sunbird’s idea in theme & lyrics demanded for a super naïve voice with a high pitch, but keeping in mind that it had to sound warm as well… It was a long search which ended up trying out various vocalists, who were all great, but not ‘the voice’ of the track.”

And he continues: “I stumbled upon her via her instagram eventually scrolling along through past contenders of ‘The Voice’ in different countries, because I knew voices like these would always hit television screens. At that point I found her, being an established singer/songwriter herself and me explaining what I wanted she perfectly understood what to do and we set on finalizing my vocal demo, writing some additional lyrics. Social media and researching long and hard thus, but I’m happy I found her. Oliviya’s own music & her personality is awesome. Lovely to work with and really understands the value of good production.”

Throughout this 11-track EP, “Sunbird” gets quite a versatile treatment including a ‘stripped edit’ with cello, Wurlitzer piano and Ben Van de Cruys’ guitars next to dancefloor house mixes by James Beachen and 11GRAMS, through a more 80’s synthwave ‘retro club edit’, and other trance versions by Omniks and Restriction 9, or breakbeat dubstep mix by Deckos.

You can check out the full EP below on Bandcamp.

Video shot in Tenerife

The accompanying video features Daniela Diaz dancing in a production by Melani Luis. The video was conceptualized by Yves Schelpe and Jonathan Guttmann, and directed and shot in Tenerife, Canary Islands by Jonathan Guttmann.

We contacted Yves to know some more bout his collaboration with these artists: “I have a long working relationship with Jonathan Guttmann, a director of many of my videos. I sent him a basic script: a person who is walking home, writing in her diary, yet in her mind all kind of things are going on. The constant battle for perfection, the passion, the deep drive. I specifically wrote in the script ‘while she dances, she can’t make progress’, and that is how we ended up with such a complicated dance routine in fact. If you look closely, if she dance, she’ll never ‘move forward’ as she’s stuck, finding perfection, burning herself up.”

Daniela the star of the video is a real talent. Yves acknowledges: “In Daniela Diaz we found and exceptional performer whose moves are just excellent. We casted her because of her flexibility and graceful dance style combinations – she immediately knew the concept and understood what she needed to do. It’s a team effort really that starts with a song, a script and then Jonathan and Melani come in to really shape it further with me, and do casting and location scouting. It’s fun to work that way – shooting clips myself as well, but also working with people remotely to get the best talents from all around the world. Both in Oliviya Nicole the vocalist, Polina Faustova our cellist on the track as well as the film crew & dancer.”

Below is the video.

Bernard - Side-Line Staff

Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil.

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