by Myles Tiessen (@myles_tiessen)
Robert Sotelo’s music is as incomprehensible as it is catchy. It’s a strange whirlwind of musical textures that is never as first it seems. You might be fooled by the bedroom-pop instrumentation or Sotelo’s tenor melodies gently floating above, but it remains utterly impenetrable, in part, due to the record’s absurdity. Released via Upset The Rhythm back in November 2021, Sotelo’s album Celebrant carries on the legacies of absurdist electronic legends of the 70s (Kraftwerk, Yellow Magic Orchestra) and sprinkles in a dash of modern art-pop.
His latest, brilliantly ludicrous offing is the video premiere of “Take Control of It.” Directed by Austrian-based multi-media artist Zali Krishna, the video features a CGI ostrich patiently waiting for a train in a similarly styled subway station.
Feeling like a video-game character’s fever-dream, the video encompasses the strange and wonderful world built by Sotelo on Celebrant. While trains come and go, partially rendered humans glitch in and out, sometimes spinning other times floating. The technicolor tree turning at the station’s center amplifies the techno-waltz and recalls the same zany imagination of Dr. Suess, raising more questions than answers.
Despite its idiosyncrasies, the small world of the subway station feels worthy of deeper exploration. If this microcosm is so full of strange mysteries, who knows what secrets must be held in the city above?