Through gorgeous layers of allure and ambience comes the new video for London-based band New Pharaohs’ latest single ‘This Changes Everything.’
Presented by Nowness, the video for ‘This Changes Everything’ is a haunting, hypnotic trip through rough, diffused colours and sultry, cinematic visuals. It’s like the psychedelic version of the opening credits to a Bond film (idea for the next one, maybe?), which definitely compliments the song’s rich swoon of strings, torch song strums and New Pharaohs’ creative force Maya Marie’s delicate purr. But, just like a siren’s call, it also holds a hidden danger within its depths…
For the audio review of ‘This Changes Everything,’ click here.
You’ve probably heard the sensuous voice of Maya Marie before, even if you didn’t realise it. Formerly the frontwoman of electro indie punk outfit Sohodolls, her songs have featured on some well-known TV favourites in the past, including Nip/Tuck, Vampire Diaries, Californication, Gossip Girl, even during the Superbowl and in an ad for Budweiser.
But after a tumultuous few years (the death of a dear friend, splitting from Sohodolls, left with no label and riddled with self-doubt) Maya Marie has experienced the next phase to what she calls an ‘evolution.’ Now the creative force behind New Pharaohs, she’s swapped punk for pensive, so far releasing the debut single ‘Empire,’ a hazy, string-soaked ballad inspired by Marie’s early years in war-torn Lebanon and the current refugee crisis in Syria.
New Pharaohs now have a new single out, ‘This Changes Everything,’ a rich, rather cinematic track that treads the line between melancholy and sensuality with just a hint of danger. I talk to Maya Marie about having never gone away, the Syrian refugee crisis and just what the plan is this time around…
Hey, Maya! Congratulations on the new single. How did ‘This Changes Everything’ come about? It feels very retro cinema, like something out of a swinging 60s film.
Thanks. The song came about from me and writing on a Wurlitzer at SARM Studios while I was waiting for a meeting. I wrote the chorus and got stuck fitting a verse around it so my friend Dominic McGuinness of the Bohicas helped me out. After I recorded it with producer Dimitri Tikovoi it was obvious that it needed a string arrangement and a string quartet. The song was an absolute pleasure to make. We all knew it was something very special and cinematic.
How has the switch from the electro punk of Sohodolls to the dusky, dramatic pop/rock of New Pharaohs been? What’s inspired your reinvention so far?
It makes me giggle when I see the word reinvention or comeback in an interview. It reminds me of when I was backstage with Coolio at a show in Milan. We were both performing at Milan Fashion Week. I was a bit tipsy and said ‘It’s so cool you’re coming back!’ to which he said ‘I never went away!’. So yeah. I’d rather call it an evolution.
So, New Pharaohs’ debut album is out early next year. What can you tell us about it?
I can tell you that I can’t wait to share more material. It is the most grown-up writing I have ever done. I worked with some really amazing artist-writers like Champs and Eugene McGuinness. It’s been cathartic and fun.
The debut single ‘Empire’ was inspired by both your memories growing up in Lebanon in the midst of war and more recently the Syrian refugee crisis. What parallels with Syria do you find with your own experiences? Will such experiences continued to be explored in your future work?
The parallels are the exodus of people from a war-torn nation on the eastern Mediterranean. I don’t know if I’ll write another song like Empire. It’s not a positive place to write from so you don’t often want to go there mentally.
Do you remember much of the culture shock when you first arrived in the UK from Lebanon?
Yes of course. Though lately I wonder how much of it was my own weirdness. I didn’t exactly fit in in my school in Cyprus. Maybe school in Beirut before the war was the last time I wasn’t the weird new girl.
In the past, you’ve written for other artists like Nicola Roberts from Girls Aloud for her track ‘Beat Of My Drum.’ Will you write again for other artists in the future?
I wrote most of Nicola’s album not just the single Beat of My Drum ;-) It was the best learning experience – seeing music from a pure pop perspective. I am writing very selectively for other artists at the moment but I don’t want to be a jobbing songwriter. It doesn’t do anything for me and it’s often the same shit on every brief now ‘We want something different and unique but it has to sound like a cross between ‘Beat of My Drum’ and ‘I Love It’’. With Nicola there was no brief. It was pure creative freedom with the sole constraint being Nicola’s desire to connect with her audience on an emotional level. Something quite new to me back then!
In another interview, you said that unlike Sohodolls, this time there’s a plan for New Pharaohs. What is it?
Record the album first, release it, then tour it. Get a manager then a label.
Once part of electronic indie-punk band Sohodolls, Beirut-born singer Maya Marie’s new project New Pharaohs sees the release of debut single ‘Empire.’
The track has country-tinged strums and a dusky snare beat over swirling strings, with Maya’s woozing, hypnotic vocals curling around every word with a beautiful sort of fragility. Like an echo into the darkness, ‘Empire’ possesses a painful sense of longing both melancholic and mesmerising, instantly hitting you in the gut.
‘Empires’ also comes at a rather cruel and emotional time as the Syrian refugee crisis hits Europe, with Maya reflecting upon her own past in nearby Lebanon and how memories of war and conflict still impact upon her, telling The Line Of Best Fit:
"New Pharaohs is very personal and the most honest I've ever been musically [...] It's about love, loss, and what could have been. I needed to get back to my roots. Seeing war unfold all over again in neighbouring Syria has brought back too many memories to ignore. I think of the classmates I had in my little convent school run by nuns in the Lebanese mountains. I know some of them died in the war. I think about the life I'd be living if there hadn't been a war. I would surely be someone else."
