Last May, we introduced Imaad Wasif’s debut single released via his own label, Voidest Records, a cover of a song by indie-folk royalty that was recorded with a pair of friends possessing quite a bit of clout themselves. Now, Wasif is gearing up to release his first album for the label, with the heady Superconsciousness slated to arrive this Wednesday. The veteran songwriter and composer is sharing one final pre-album single today with the characteristically contemplative “We Are Hunters,” a song he originally ideated while touring Europe as a member of Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ live band. “I was walking the streets in Paris and realized that even amidst all the beauty of the city, I was unable to see beyond my darkness, unable to see that I was living some version of ‘the dream,’” he explains.
The lyrical content meditating on personal truths may have been born in that moment, though Wasif notes that the instrumental element came together a bit slower, even changing shape while in the recording booth. “‘We Are Hunters’ started out as a raga-based song on a 12-string guitar, inspired by the C-sharp modality of a lot of the East Indian classical music I grew up listening to,” he notes. “But in the studio it evolved into a multidimensional exploration of sounds, more of a homage to Sonic Youth’s Sister and the first La Düsseldorf album. It carries a lyrical throughline of a search for god-consciousness and the soul’s pursuit of detachment from guilt and bodily lust. The text of The Seven Spiritual Laws of Unfoldment could be cited as its origin source; I was reading that all through the winter of 2023.”
In contrast with the song’s shapeshifting structure and quiet-loud dynamics, the music video directed by Barnaby Clay is entirely static in the sense that it depicts Wasif ambling in headlights for five minutes of uncut filming. “We did something like 10 takes on a very sketchy street during a freezing, rainy night in Los Angeles,” the artist recalls. “I was a huge fan of Barnaby’s from his film The Seeding, the Mick Rock documentary, and the ‘Snakesweat’ short films he made for Yeah Yeah Yeahs. I’d never worked with him before on any of my solo songs. He’s brilliant. Truly a visionary eye. He kept saying to me that he wouldn’t do it unless he had an idea that stood on its own with the song, and then one night it was pouring and he called me up and told me to show up with my white suit. I had no idea what he had in mind.”
Equally unlike the breezy instrumental—which, after a slow build, sounds a bit like Nada Surf’s take on power-pop over top of a grungy guitar riff—the shoot for the video was intense. As the camera pans out it becomes clear that Wasif is being dragged by a rope tying his wrists together, while the shoot itself was fraught with anxiety between the un-LA-like weather and local hostilities involving threats with a tire iron. “Tristan from the band Services was pulling the rope and I was resisting the entire time, so the friction and tension was real—my wrists and my body were scarred for weeks after this,” says Wasif. “Money Mark was driving the truck behind me, and in between takes he’d let me hop in so I could try to dry off and warm up while he blasted the heat. The whole experience really had a sinister air around it, which is why this film feels so unnerving for me to watch. It’s mesmerizing, I love it.”
Check out the video below, and pre-order Superconsciousness here. Additionally, if you’re in LA you can catch Wasif’s free release show on March 22 at Zebulon, where he’ll be playing alongside Lael Neale and Chalk Teeth, with a DJ set by Devendra Banhart. Find more info here.
