Ntu is self-releasing EP Perfect Blue on New York’s Abu Recordings in December, with short film ‘(000)’ premiering on AQNB today. The New York-based producer, songwriter and multidisciplinary artist self-describes their brand of experimental RnB, hip hop, and pop as ‘warp’.
The record features tracks like ‘Gaslight’, ‘Shame’ and ‘always suffering’, with their growling production and delicate vocals evoking the sound of artists like serpentwithfeet, Arca and FKA Twigs. Perfect Blue explores the number zero as being the sum of all positive and negative numbers, while quantifying Blackness as something generative and containing multitudes.
The preceding ‘(000)’ short film, is what Ntu calls a ‘reimaging’ of the performance of the same name, presented as part of a 2019 residency at the historic St. Mark’s Church-in-the-Bowery. Performers include Jessica Howard, Dana McCoy, Michael Miles and Abby T., with psychedelic videography by Thomas Lange and Kyra Williams. The project explores (Black) subjectivity in the racial imaginary, and “how that imaginary reconfigures our collective reality”.**
Ntu’s Perfect Blue EP is out on New York’s Abu Recordings in December. He performs NYU Local Presents Local Sounds at New York’s Trans-Pecos on November 20, 2019.
