Paper Idol is an electronic musician that makes thumping, exhilarating nu-disco. The musician’s latest song “Feel Real Pretty” was recently released and today we’re excited to premiere the accompanying video for the song. The intense pace of this video, which features just one protagonist, simply called The Vagabond, on a boozy journey through different urban streetscapes. Lyrically, the song is about a man going to the club (hit the town / find a dumb club that plays edm), meeting up with his drug dealer (it’s my cinnamon girl / she’s handin out the best damn powder in the city) and being told to come back when he feels “real pretty.”

“The process of making this piece was incredibly unique,” said video director Wyatt Winborne. “I originally shot it as a favor for a friend of mine, but we ended up feeling like the video overpowered his song. Before the video got to Matan [Paper Idol], the video sat on the proverbial shelf for about a year. I remember he called me after he saw it and said something along the lines of ‘I just played the video to a song I’m working on and my jaw is on the floor.’ The video worked with the song pretty effortlessly – the energy of the song breathed new life into the video. I barely had to recut it. I’m thrilled it’s finally coming out.”

“I look at this – now nearly two year old – piece and see basically a historical record of my emotional state at the time,” he said. “I was in a very intense, long term relationship that was slowly and painfully coming to a close; I wasn’t consciously aware of it yet but I could feel it in my chest. I was lost, I felt like my life was falling apart and I was desperately reaching for any semblance of stability. The video reflects that, I think. When I experience any sort of foundation-shaking event in my life, for some reason, I have the instinct to destroy everything in order to rebuild on the rubble. That’s what this character is doing. He’s flailing, unsure of where he stands, and is purely reacting. He has this instinct to destroy himself just to be able to know what he belongs to in this world, even if what he belongs to is nothing. He’s a person chasing answers. I think this is one of the only pieces I’ve done that I can look at and say “I like this.” Almost certainly, that’s because it’s honest, it’s from my heart, and it’s indulging my own mania and insanity. You can’t hate an artifact, it just is.”