Brazilian artist Aldo expresses the exhausting repetition of city life in this anxious, hypnotic video by Nylon. 

The singer is trapped in a shifting urban labyrinth, arranged out of the architecture and detritus of São Paulo. There are shades of Luis Buñuel in the lingering images: black smoke emerging from a collar; unpeeling faces; a spiral staircase in the iris of an eye.

ANDRE FARIA (ALDO):

"As São Paulo is kind of suffocating we decided to isolate ourselves in a wooden house in the mountains in a city called Campos do Jordão, two hours away by car. Mura came up with a beat he was working on based on a “berimbau” line, a typical Brazilian percussive instrument and we then added a bassline probably influenced by Pixies’ Kim Deal as we'd spent hours on the road listening to Surfer Rosa and Doolittle. Once you’re out in the woods breathing fresh air you simply realise how insane it is to live in a complex, surreal city like São Paulo, sometimes you just need a break to see yourself from a different angle, it's almost like we had to climb a mountain to see ourselves down there in the city. We pictured ourselves in a maze, walking and running, trying to escape, to make money, to make music, to make a career, 24/7, unsustainably frenetic.

"It only took 3 minutes of conversation with these post-production ninjas for us to discuss the COPAN building in São Paulo’s downtown designed by the architect, Oscar Niemeyer. It really is a labyrinth… 1160 apartments and 5000 people living inside! That was the vibe we wanted so we filmed part of the video there. We ended up shooting over 2 days, with 4 months of post-production."

NYLON:

"Both the song's title and lyrics relate to the subconscious and surreal so we had the idea to create a plethora of semi-realistic, dreamlike visually rich narratives of the band stuck in these maze-like scenes, in an endless loop. The video is a journey into the surreal, a slow and steady descent into a beautiful and mesmerising madness. Based around the artist’s performance we created hypnotic visuals by distorting and transforming every shot, making use of live action seamlessly integrated with 3D and VFX. Each vignette has its own distinct look and feel. The performance of the artist is the common thread holding our realities together as we fearlessly collide one look with the next. The tone is playful and intriguing. Bizarre and curious at times but always beautiful, always slick."