New Music Friday means we have a look at a brand spanking new track, with the spotlight today on Gesaffelstein and The Weeknd who come together for their song Lost in the Fire.
Gesaffelstein (Mike Levy outside of the DJ booth) is French, though his name looks like a frightening flashback to a GCSE German reading exam. Don’t worry if you’re struggling to translate it however, it is an amalgamation of Gesamtkunstwerk (a total work of art) and a little-known scientist, Albert Einstein. He has been DJing, producing, remixing and putting out his own projects, across a multitude of European EDM labels, under the Gesaffelstein name since 2008. He is known for very ominous, dark and moody techno that has been described as “industrial” and “sinister”. It is no wonder then that, when hip-hop came knocking, it came in the form of Kanye West and The Weeknd.
Kanye had Gesaffelstein co-produce two tracks on his highly divisive 2013 record Yeezus which felt very experimental and industrial, playing into his strengths as a producer.
Transferring his talents from Chicago to Toronto, Lost in the Fire is not the duo’s first collaboration. Abel Tesfaye (The Weeknd to us normal folk) released a six track album entitled My Dear Melancholy in 2018, which was a return to the melodramatic, misery-soaked RnB that he had laid the foundations of his career on. His previous two albums were tailored to the masses with great success, but the change of tone may well have coincided with his split with Selena Gomez. Either way, the return of Moody Abel was an invitation for a collaboration with Gesaffelstein and it came on track four, I Was Never There, and again on track five, Hurt You. Trademark instrumental that sounds as if it was welded together in an abandoned warehouse is complimented perfectly by the warbling vocals of the Canadian superstar, and the recipe is replicated on both artists’s first release of 2019.
Lost in the Fire feels much more pop-y than their previous work together, with Gesaffelstein happy to take more of a backseat and perhaps use The Weeknd’s stature to bring the track to the masses. The beat is clearly tailor-made for The Weeknd to jump on and I would be stunned if any potential future visual accompaniment didn’t feature a 3am drive through a sleepy city (a visual teaser was released on Gesaffelstein’s website but I’m determined to see my vision come true).
The lyrics are typically blunt, with The Weeknd speaking of his desire to have sex with the girl in question, but also of his desire to stay with her, possibly in relation to supermodel Bella Hadid who’s relationship with The Weeknd bookended his ill-fated time with Selena Gomez. The track may also suggest a subliminal shot at Drake. The lyric “I just want a baby with the right one/Cause I could never be the one to hide one” is a reference to Drake’s child Adonis who he had with Sophie Brussaux, a former adult actress. During their highly publicised summer beef, Pusha T claimed Drake was hiding a child and that he was planning to announce it during an Adidas press run on his diss track, The Story of Adidon.
It’ll be interesting to see of Drake responds, but with new music on the horizon for both The Weeknd and Gesaffelstein, I can see the two coming together on another project in the near future.
Spotify Playlist Link: https://spoti.fi/2CKuVex
A Song A Day 