Emilie: What is this??? ARY: I made it today. Would you like to join? Emilie: Yeeeeees!”
ARY AND EMILIE NICOLAS
COLLABORATE ON
“HURT YOU”
OUT NOW ON ISLAND RECORDS
WATCH THE VIDEO HERE
Two of Norway’s most revered female artists, Emilie Nicolas and ARY, have teamed up to create the remarkable song ‘Hurt You’, out now on Island Records. The stunning collaboration came about when Emilie DM’d ARY after hearing one of her beats on Instagram. Both fans of each other’s work, they recorded a few days later at ARY’s home studio; with ARY laying down Emilie’s vocals. ARY taught herself to produce after noticing the unequal power dynamic between producer and artist. Having spent time searching for the right mentors and producers, ARY didn’t ever get to a place where she was happy with the ‘role of the artist’, until she had written, recorded and produced her first song, and was completely accountable for the sound.
This collaboration is an incredible example of ingenuity during lockdown, with ARY and Emilie hunkering down over coffee and logic.
“I see the song as a long chain of thoughts spinning in different directions, always leading back to a moment of clarity or moment of noticing how bad it can feel when these thoughts come and go,” says ARY.
“Getting to know Emilie has been such a dream, and having her as the first feature on my own music is nothing but surreal. I’m still finding my feet as a producer and she’s been an amazing help to me actually finishing the track,” she adds.
“It’s always different to work with someone who is the artist and the producer at the same time. It’s sometimes easier to understand what they want and need and it feels very pure in a sense. I came home to ARY’s apartment and we drank coffee and recorded some of my vocals. It’s been a very organic and easy process 🙂 The song is about the fear of hurting someone you care about,” says Emilie.
ARY came up with the concept of the video, and wanted to portray two friends being completely vulnerable with each other, and close enough that you can feel how bad it would be for one of them to think badly of the other. At a time when women are pitted against women in the public eye, ‘Hurt You’ depicts the power of female friendship.
ARY is Norwegian singer, songwriter and producer, who last year released her first music as sole producer on her project, with a beautiful run of singles from ‘Oh My God’, to ‘Angels’ and ‘Moth To A Flame’.
Growing up in a musical family between her mother chanting Tibetan mantras and Billie Holiday songs, and her father writing songs for all occasions and working as a touring actor, at 20-years-old ARY discovered music production, and within a couple of months played first gig at the Operahouse in Oslo at Esmods yearly fashion show, singing while playing her own beats. Releasing ‘Childhood Dreams’ in 2017, a critically praised breakout song (recently covered by virtual popstar Seraphine – from the online video game League of Legends) which led to festival performances at Roskilde, Glastonbury and Pitchfork Paris, ARY quickly decided to dive deeper into production, and took a break from touring to focus on finding her voice as a music producer.
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