A nice surprise to see some recognition for Woodkid in the nominations for this year's Grammy awards.
He's been nominated in the Best Video category for the extraordinary clip that accompanies his track Goliath, the first track that emerged from his S16 album.
Also in the category are Beyonce for Brown Skin Girl, Future featuring Drake with Life is good, Anderson Paak's Lockdown and Harry Styles with Adore you. Woodkid, in his music video directing job, previously directed Harry Styles' Sign of the Times video.
He's an accomplished video director and it's not the first time he's been nominated for a Best Video Grammy either, being nominated in 2013 for Run boy run and in 2015 for The golden age. His Harry Styles vide won the Brit award for British video of the year in 2018.
During his career, he's made videos for Lana Del Rey, Taylor Swift and Katy Perry, as well as France's Nolwenn Leroy and Yelle.
This year's Grammys has Beyonce as the favourite to take home the most awards, with a total of nine nominations. Taylor Swift is on the shortlist for six as is Dua Lipa.
I'll be keeping my eyes on Woodkid hopefully coming home with a new shiny ornament for his mantlepiece. Fingers crossed.
The 63rd Grammy awards ceremony takes place on January 31 at the Staples Centre in LA.
A very welcome return for Woodkid with a new video for the track Goliath.
The artist known to friends and family as Yoann Lemoine was responsible for 2013's The Golden Age, one of this blog's favourite albums in recent years.
Originally a graphic designer, he'd directed music videos before then for the likes of Yelle and Nolwenn Leroy as well as international acts like Katy Perry, Taylor Swift and Lana Del Rey.
By the time his early singles - Iron, and Run Boy Run - were released ahead of his album, he was already a respected figure and his visual style added significantly to the music.
Seven years is a long time in music, and Goliath comes ahead of Woodkid's second album. Since his debut, there have been a handful of releases including the 2016 Ellis EP and the soundtrack for Mexican film Desierto. To say this new album is 'anticipated' is a bit of an understatement.
During the time between albums, he's hardly been idle having directed the iconic video for the Harry Styles single Sign of the Times, a number one single in the UK, a top five in the USA and a top three in France. The video has had over 500 million views on YouTube and was the winner of the British Artist Video of the Year at the 2018 Brit Awards.
Needless to say, the new track is an epic, but with an understated and introspective vocal. There are obviously echos of his earlier work, but it's far from a simple continuation of his earlier work.
The video, shot in the Czech Republic, was shown as a premier on YouTube following a live chat. Asked what inspired him for the new album, he replied: "The industrial scale of things, and the smallness of humans."
He added that other inspiration included: "Many more other inspirations, Akira, Japanese breakcore..."
You can see something of this aesthetic reflected on the adaptiveminerals.com website and on the video. There's something of the style of photographer Sebastião Salgado in the vision here.
Asked about who worked with him on the album, he said: "A lot of people collaborated on this record, including Tepr Son Lux, Esser, Phazz, Sally Herbert and many more!!"
I'm sure remixes and soundtrack opportunities are already being planned, but I can't help but be excited by this release itself and the prospect of more to come.
