Iglooghost Adds to His Fantastically Haunting World With "Amu"
UK-based artist Iglooghost does more than make music. He creates worlds that blend reality and fiction, expanding his shared world of supernatural entities, tiny gods, and the space they inhabit with each multimedia release. "Amu" sees Iglooghost adding this to ever-growing world for the first time since the release of his 2018 solo EPs Clear Tamei and Steel Mogu.
The single itself was not released in traditional fashion; there was no cookie-cutter marketing push and tease. Instead, Iglooghost led listeners down a scavenger hunt through ancient websites to find four hidden stones, thus unlocking "Amu."
This digital puzzle saw users gather in a special discord chatroom where they had to communally organize themselves, decode mysterious files via SoulSeek and shady networks, and bargain with a 12-year-old producer by the name of Lil Blimpo, who just so happened to experience an otherworldly event at a Neolithic stone circle in Cornwall. Their reward was "Amu," an otherworldly track quite unlike anything else out there. Iglooghost spoke further on the online puzzle, sharing,
"I think loads of people around my age grew up immersed in these kinds of feral, infinite wormhole-like music communities online. When I was 14 me and my friends would spend days doing ridiculous things like trading fake unreleased Odd Future beats for genuine ones, following breadcrumb trails of dead links and ancient profiles to grab demos from our favorite music people at the time. Mixing these kinds of experiences with storytelling and magic-realism was a really fun way to get tons of crazy weirdos in a chatroom cracking codes and spamming text at lightning speed. To me, treating the internet like a huge, expansive wilderness feels like a way more tantalising prospect than just staying cooped up on the same 3 social networks everyday."
There is a fantastical and haunting curiosity to "Amu." The children's choir backed by bursts of hyper-futuristic dance production tells the story of the titular creature, from their anatomy to religious structure. It is an exercise in enthralling production as much as it is worldbuilding. Its grandeur, akin to a sonic interpretation of sacred texts, demands your attention, as each second whisks you deeper and deeper into Iglooghost's expansive world.
Alongside the release of "Amu" arrives a music video directed by Luke Gibson that brings "Amu" and their ecosystem to life byway of 3D animation. The video tells the tale of treacherous journey, from a local chip shop to a clandestine shrine on the outskirts of town.
Listen to "Amu" below:
