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PREMIÈRE: Tropical Birds Enliven Baile Trailblazer Daniel Haaksman’s Detour Into Classical

By 15 April, 2021

“Vem” is the new single from German DJ and producer Daniel Haaksman. Known for popularising baile funk through his Man Recordings imprint, Haaksman’s own work has always defied categorisation, loosely operating within the notion of global bass, but unafraid to take risks, and always surprising us.

This continues with “Vem” which Haaksman has told us is “part of a new project I´m working on which is aiming at bringing more classical European music elements into my music”. After working with vocalists such as Cibelle, Coco Maria, Çantamarta, Kalaf Angelo and Spoek Mathambo over the last couple of years, this next project will instead see him go instrumental, uniting with a cellist, violinist, pianist, harp player and bel canto singer based, like him, in Berlin. “It’s one of Europe´s capital cities for classical music and there´s so many talented musicians around”, says Haaksman.

This new approach is clear on “Vem” which features strings, harp and a beatific piano motif alongside a baile beat, synths and other electronic elements. For him, the accompanying video, which features boldly-coloured birds rendered in animation, was a perfect fit: “to me these animated birds embodied a similar approach, emulating the natural or organic but doing it fully digital.” To get the birds to move so naturally, the video director, Vinzent Britz (Vinzent.ME, Berlin), meticulously mapped image by image on to real video footage. It was worth it, cementing the song’s feeling of awakening. “Now that spring is coming I wanted to celebrate the increasing public presence of birds; at least in Berlin they’re back in the city’s soundscape after long, cold winter months.”

“Vem” is available, as three different versions, from Bandcamp


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