O Future Issue a Dark, Disembodied Reminder That ‘We’re All Just Meat’

Last month, O Future released Immaculate, the duo’s first EP since their 2019 album Voyeur. Now, the Los Angeles synth-pop practitioners are back with a new visualizer for “Meat,” the EP’s otherworldly closing number. Premiering below, the visual taps into something dark and unsettling as digital graphics of sharks, rocks, and skulls complement Katherine Mills Rymer’s disembodied reminder that we’re all just meat.

O Future is the project of Rymer and her collaborator Jens Bjornkjaer. The duo crafted their latest EP in L.A. before it was mixed by Mikkel Gemsoe in Bjornkjaer’s native Denmark (Rymer, meanwhile, hails from South Africa). “All the songs except for ‘Meat’ were written/made in Los Angeles in between 2019-2020,” Bjornkjaer tells American Songwriter over email. “‘Meat’ was written maybe four years ago in [my] family home in Aarhus in the basement in winter.”

O Future’s “Meat” visual follows their previous video for “Dinner.” Both projects were fully DIY affairs. “We, as per usual, did make all of the video exclusively ourselves,” says Rymer of the “Dinner” video. “We did shoot some interiors at our friend Owen’s, who has the beautiful house in the hills of Los Angeles where he kindly let us commandeer his house for a few hours. But the actual filming, producing, acting, grading, editing cutting, makeup, costume, lighting is all done between the two of us. With no help.”

“Yeah, I feel people don’t get fully what we mean so I am going to be clear: On our video shoots it is just myself and Katherine, no cast, crew or post crew,” says Bjornkjaer. “It’s a two-hander type collective. All the visuals and design for O Future is done by Katherine.”

Rymer explains that “how we work is closer to an art collective,” adding that “‘Dinner’ was also shot on an iPhone 12 with a gimbal (pivoted support equipment) so we could move around L.A. quickly and have the character be in multiple environments.”

The duo shot “Dinner” in just two days, then switched gears to focus on post-production. Because they do everything themselves, this process can take weeks to complete. “Sometimes for our other video we just released, ‘And You’re Mine,’ which had a lot of animation/collage work, post can take like over a month to do,” says Rymer, “even when I am working near constantly.”

Asked if they set out to achieve a certain vibe or mood across Immaculate’s five songs, Rymer responds, “I don’t think we actively think about that. Only when we listen back to what we have done can we see the emotional architecture.” Bjornkjaer puts it a little differently,“We are concerned with virtuosity and emotional dexterity.”

“Yes,” Rymer qualifies, “but that it smoothes over you like some terrible textured wave.”

“Meat” is a perfect example of that smooth yet textured wave sensation. “I think a lot of our music relates to movies we like,” says Bjornkjaer. “You wanna have the feeling of a Tarkovsky fire scene.”

“Jens and I will have definite inspirations that float around, but when we make a track we don’t have any discussions or thoughts to ‘Let’s try make it sound like ‘insert reference,’” says Rymer, reflecting on the duo’s recent influences 

“I think a lot of pop and postmodern pop is made in this way, which is all great, but this is not what I am interested in,” explains Bjornkjaer. “What I am trying to do on each and every track I make is to make all the blending of all the references/genre/time periods meld to form something completely new to itself.”

Immaculate follows Voyeur, 2015’s Acute Feast, and 2013’s Disco To Die For. Now the duo are prepping another EP expected later this year, which will arrive with a “steady stream of music releases and visuals” in the coming months, says Rymer. 

That’s not the only creative endeavor O Future is working on right now. “We also have some scoring projects coming down the pike that should come out later in the year,” says Bjornkjaer—plus “a spicy indie film that Katherine starred in and that O Future made the music for should also be coming out by the end of the year.”

“I also will be endeavouring to show some art objects/works I have been making,” Rymer shares.

Until then, check out O Future’s latest digital offering below. Immaculate is out now via ONE / HALF.