With a sparkling harp glissando, Betty Boop steps into a mirror and the beat drops. So begins Space Honey’s “Red Wine,” an ambling and sleepy ode to apathy, set to the backdrop of a 1930’s style film reel. Atwood Magazine is excited to premiere this dreamy song and video today. On the new track, the California singer, Space Honey (one of “many” alter egos of Sunday), freestyles over a practically liquid beat from producer Drippy.
Watch: “Red Wine” – Space Honey
The video flips between old sepia footage of Betty Boop, beloved 1930s cartoon sex symbol, and Honey lounging on deck chairs or wandering hotel corridors, mumbling about “what we got going on for lunch.” The song has an air of distance to it, like someone watching earth from space and commenting on the day. Sunday, her usual persona, is often gloomy and dark. Her airy counterpart, Space Honey, instead gazes casually, enjoying the sunshine.
I’m empty, pull no punches
what we got going on for lunch?
I gotta tell you on my own
it’s what I need the distance for
There is a contented sort of apathy to it, and the song oozes with glittering harp and what sounds like, well, honey. It’s the song you might imagine to be the soundtrack to a glamorous trip to California – if you’ve never been there, that is. It’s a fantasy – a dream. She describes it as “an explanation of hope and doubt trapped together.” All of these emotions are encapsulated in the end of her freestyle:
It’s funny, the sun shines
I never wake up
suddenly space honey trapped
Wanting him like he wants me back
Spending all my time
wishing you were mine
After her smooth vocal ends, the beat and harp continue, with grainy footage of the LA hills filling the screen. It leaves you to wonder if you imagined her presence. She is elusive, aloof, and glimmering. The song itself is brief, but enchanting all the same (“a lo-fi mix of hip-hop and jazz,” the artist says). Space Honey might not care, but you should.
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:: watch “Red Wine” here ::
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