It’s a wicked, wild world out there, when you think about it. Life is astonishing, beautiful, extraordinary – absolutely and utterly stunning, once you stop to consider how chaos can (and did) ultimately lead to such diverse forms of existence. Switzerland’s FIJI explore the absurdity that is life in their new single “Boy Oh Boy,” a striking minimalist commentary on the world as we know it.
Boy oh boy
Now that I know
Why should I?
Boy oh boy
Your synthetic dreams
I won’t be your fool
Listen: “Boy Oh Boy” – FIJI
Atwood Magazine is proud to be premiering “Boy Oh Boy,” the latest release from synthpop duo FIJI. Based in Bern, Switzerland, Simone De Lorenzi and Simon Schuettel offer “Boy Oh Boy” as “a dark fairytale, a crepuscular fable, about the times we live in.” Ominous, dark and foreboding, “Boy Oh Boy” feels like the soundtrack for dark Disney World, a mirror that shows us our true reality – flaws and all.
Slogans for clowns
Dumbing it down
You like the rush
I wanna leave
Boy oh boy
Why oh boy
You think you know
Monkeys ride on
Despite the song’s clear disconnect from reality, we get the sense that FIJI are embedded deep in the world they know – a world that, to them, is overflowing with darkness and despair in its current state. They have every reason to feel that way: On the global scale, it feels like hate is up and love is down. It’s hard to see a solution when negativity abounds, but still we must persevere.
It helps to have songs like “Boy Oh Boy” to remind us why we need to heal the world. While dark synths whiz and buzz, vocalist Simone De Lorenzi speaks to us, as if through the looking glass – like we’re getting introduced to reality for the very first time. The plot of our story, in her eyes, seems dim – there’s little sense in being here, considering the disastrous state of things. Yet, here we are! Here you are! What are we going to do about it?
Directed by Onome Ekeh of Featurezoo, a forward-thinking “playground for complex ideas and identities,” the “Boy Oh Boy” music video presents individually-named objects (in Spanish) in a random numerical order. We are introduced to “La Luna,” the moon; “El Catrin,” the well-dressed; “El Arbol,” the tree; and so forth. Each one flickers as it spans the screen, as if they are all players in some sort of virtual reality game. We must then remind ourselves that they are not, in fact, in a game; this is life – real life, real things, all trying to coexist in harmony.
Dark threads may run throughout “Boy Oh Boy,” but the undercurrent of FIJI’s bombastic new single is not one of sinister thought: If anything, “Boy Oh Boy” feels like a warning, alerting us to lift up our heads and heed a strong call to action.
Boy oh boy. This world needs work. Are you listening?
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cover © Onome Ekeh/Featurezoo
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