Lush, languid, and carrying a psychic haze so thick that headphone listeners might catch a hotbox high, Imugi 이무기’s new single Greensmoke is the concentrated essence of Tāmaki Makaurau’s most blunted bedroom soul duo.
Directed by A Label Called Success head Connor Nestor, the track’s genuinely dream-like poolside visuals match its hypnagogic aural feel perfectly, a serendipity that singer and songwriter Yery Cho attributes in part to the fact that she and producer Carl Ruwhiu were, like, actually super tired. “We were both running on two hours’ sleep,” she told VICE. “Then we were shooting for 10 hours… I feel like that captured the jaded vibe of the song.”
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While Yery acknowledges that the song’s subject matter probably isn’t a mystery, admitting that, “everyone calls it ‘smoked out’ and ‘hazy’” there’s also an element of analogy to its mantra-like hook.
“I think for me growing older, coming into my 20s and coming out of being super angsty, and for both of us just learning how to understand our mental—learning how to recognise when it’s your ego speaking and when it’s, like, your anxiety speaking or depression speaking—learning how to recognise that and take care of yourself, and take care of the core of your being, like your spirit. Even though weed can be used as a crutch for a lot of people, it’s saying: even when you’re in that space, keep your shit together, you’ve got this.”
