Spencer Draeger’s music as DRÄGER has always flirted with the tropes of ’80s—namely punk and synthpop—but in an alternate reality the musician followed a darkwave rabbit hole all the way down to the Italians Do It Better discography’s somber ballads fit for Twin Peaks’ Roadhouse stage. His new single “Midnight Mystery” leaves little to the imagination, as Drager shares that it was actually initially intended for a comp released by Johnny Jewel’s label. “I had this dark synth-pop track about summer, which felt a little different from the course I was going,” he shares.
With the summer winding down—and, in the Midwest at least, temperatures reaching new highs for the year—it seems like the perfect moment for “Midnight Mystery,” a hazy, synth-heavy track documenting a different sort of alternate reality. “I’d been dealing with a big move to the West Coast and going through a messy breakup with a lot of emotions that’d hit me in the middle of the night,” Draeger shares of the track. “I’d get this creeping wonder about the life I left behind in New York. It was a wonder about the person I left behind, and also just with myself—had I made the right call in moving? 2022 was just a strange rebirth in a new town hanging on to a lot of what I missed back home in New York.”
The Fred Joseph–directed video fittingly sees DRÄGER performing the tune on what looks like an ’80s TV program, all washed out in neon lights and foggy textures. “I’ve always been a huge fan of Top of the Pops and just old ridiculous music videos,” he shares. “As a young kid, I used to watch MTV (when they played videos) till 3 a.m. every night. I missed the silliness and over-the-top drama in the colorizing and ridiculous themes. These days everything is just too transparent and clean and I wanted to get back to the mystery (no pun intended) and fun of the late ’70s/early ’80s. I love how so many artists made a mockery on Top of the Pops from lip syncing or miming. I decided this was what I wanted.”
Check it out below.
