Sleepwalk through the streets in Busy P’s new video

The Ed Banger boss heads to the streets of Kiev in the dreamy video for his Mayer Hawthorne-featuring new single ‘Genie’

Pedro Winter aka Busy P is best known as the head honcho of Ed Banger Records, but he’s an established producer in his own right. Though it’s been two years since his last solo release came out, he’s now back with “Genie”, an upbeat, loved-up antidote to the chaos of the world, featuring the pristine vocals of US singer and Grammy nominee Mayer Hawthorne. In Winter’s own words, “while the world is going crazy, the only answer is love.”

The “Genie” video comes directed by Arnaud Deroudilhe, who first collaborated with Winter on 2014’s “This Song”. “I knew we’d do more stuff together,” says Winter, “I liked his energy and ideas.” The clip features a woman sleepily making her way through the streets of Kiev, finding her way out of the club and back again. As Deroudilhe explains, this idea sprung from his own experiences sleepwalking in the middle of the night. 

“My girlfriend caught me sleepwalking in only my boxers around 5am once,” says Deroudilhe. “Thankfully I got no further than the apartment building hallway, but we had fun the next day imagining what could have happened had I made it to the street. I thought it may make for a good video and told Pedro about the idea. He was working on ‘Genie’ at that point and sent me the track. It’s then that it just clicked and I was able to put the concept to paper and so the adventure began.”

The video was shot in Ukraine over three nights, in “below freezing” temperatures. “Anna, who played our main character, was a real trooper in those conditions – so was the crew,” says Deroudilhe. “They didn’t flinch when we had to install a striptease bar on a crowded subway train, despite having not yet cleared a permit. The police did eventually come shut us down, but we managed to get the shot! And we even ended up on YouTube the same night.”

Winter adds: “Arnaud came up to me with this ‘sleepwalking’ pitch for a video. At that time, I was in studio finishing an old song I started 15 years ago. Mayer Hawthorne was in Paris during his European tour (and) I invited him to Threesome Studio, where I explained him I wanted to do a modern love song. He recorded the vocals back in LA. I like the fact the video is not directly linked to the music. A lovely girl sleepwalking in the streets of Kiev is romantic and poetic – that’s all I needed for this video.”

The Genie EP, out this Friday (February 24), also features remixes by UK talents including Hot Chip and The 2 Bears’ Joe Goddard and eccentric newcomer Reckonwrong. Watch the video above.

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