[@Diplo] enlists [@OctavianEssie] for ‘New Shapes’

Octavian links up with American super DJ Diplo for his second surprise collab of 2019, ‘New Shapes’.

This link up on ‘New Shapes’ is more left field than Octavian’s previous 2019 release ‘Bet’ which featured Michael Phantom. Whilst Octavian has seemingly plied his trade by surprising his audience over and over again from release to release, working with Diplo was a complete shock. Diplo having worked with pretty much every big name in music, is an artist who needs no introduction, plying his trade as both a DJ and producer.

Whilst no pairing with Octavian or Diplo individually should really come as a surprise, a Brit-American link-up happening so out of the blue definitely was. Add to this the lack of promotion of the track had, we listeners are left in a bit of a puzzling situation… because the track slaps.

This is not Octavian’s first foray into working with a producer whose name stands alone, as he previously worked on ‘Move Me’ with the extremely talented, Mura Masa. Much like with ‘Move Me’ on ‘New Shapes’ we hear an evolution in the artist’s sound on a production level. Whilst the track stylistically has all of Octavian’s performative traits in his vocals, the production is quite stripped back for him. It has a very mellow vibe with an easy to pick up and catchy hook, strengths Octavian frequently plays on. The more stripped back production by Diplo adds to this and gives the track almost an element of maturity. That’s not to say Octavian’s other music is immature but more that on his other tracks you can hear the playful and experimental elements to him as a person a lot more.

Whilst there’s only a lyric video, for now, ‘New Shapes’ brings to mind Octavian’s past visuals for ‘Hands’ which was again a track with an extremely mellow vibe. Hopefully, the track does get visuals, preferably by Octavian’s regular directorial team who constantly deliver crisp and interesting visuals that stand out amongst the slew of similar looking music videos already out there.

If you like ‘New Shapes’ you can hear it alongside more work from Diplo on his new Europa EP which is dropping soon.