In his new single, ‘Gemini Moon’, British – Asian electro-pop artist Seeva explores love, longing, and loneliness. With powerful vocals and atmospheric production, the singer, songwriter and producer explores the desperation of clinging onto a relationship, knowing it is bound to end. An equally stunning and vulnerable music video weaves the story of Seeva’s relationship with a masked lover. The intimate, domestic visuals depict everything from romanticised reflections of happier times, to escapism and loneliness experienced even in the presence of one’s partner.
Speaking of the process of writing ‘Gemini Moon’, Seeva says, “I had the chorus in my head, so I played these piano chords, and sort of put two and two together when I was going through some of the productions that I do and found the drum beat. I thought maybe I could start off with this drum beat and try and write a verse to go with the line that I had in my head for ages. And it all just came together.”
‘Gemini Moon’ was also written with musicians Emma Seeberg and Matt Taylor, and Seeva says that they love the process of collaborating with other artists. “I love writing with other people, and after I released the album, one of the best things that came from it is that other artists have heard it, and they know who I am in terms of my songwriting. So, I got to connect with all these songwriters and producers.”
As for the music video, he credits his friend, filmmaker Thomas Paul Martin, with the vision. “He’s an incredible filmmaker, and he’s done some amazing things that I’ve seen before. We got in touch with him and he really liked the song. He pitched the idea to me, actually, I can’t take any credit for that. He said, ‘What if you are there and in love with a guy in a mask, because the whole song is about really being trapped in your feelings. Then we kind of developed the idea a bit more – you know very typically that person is usually more submissive, but what if they were the dominant one and I was the submissive one in that relationship. It was a very domestic scenario, and then the scarecrow came in when we were trying to find something to escape to. So it all came together in a kind of Wizard of Oz sort of way at the end, and he (Martin) was the mastermind behind all of that.”
Released in September 2020, Seeva’s debut album We Need To Talk is a potluck of groovy bops and emotional ballads. He confesses that if anything, the pressure on him increased post this release. “Not from anyone else, but just from me. I released that (album) being completely oblivious to anything. I’ve not released music before, that album was a pet project during lockdown, and I didn’t plan for anyone to hear it, really. So when people did listen, I had to follow it up with something. I think it was like, ‘Okay, well, people take me seriously now a little bit at least, I hope’. But now I have to actually sit down and write something that people who connected to the first release can connect to again. It was a weird process of, at first, trying to create something that was so similar to the first album, and then realising that what people seem to connect to is me being myself. So that’s what I need to do now. And I’m very different to who I was when I wrote the first album, so the music is reflective of that.”
As an independent artist, Seeva thrives in the freedom they get to have over their work. “There isn’t anyone over my head saying ‘You should be making this’. I get a lot of power in that way, which I feel very lucky for. But I struggle sometimes to balance all the different versions of me – being South Asian, but also being British, and being queer, and being a man, and being all these different things. I just try to be as myself as possible in the moment, and that is the most important thing for me. Then, whatever anyone expects hopefully comes through if I’m just always myself.”
Queer influences are important to Seeva’s work, and he believes that queer artists making their mark in the music industry is no new phenomenon. “We’ve actually always been here. There’s so many – given it’s mostly gay male artists who have been at the front and I think that’s still very much the case – but for me, going back and seeing people like Elton John, Freddy Mercury, and George Michael, who may not have been completely open about it, but it was very obvious to see. And now, I really love Olly Alexander from Years & Years and MNEK. There’s a lot of incredible queer artists in London who are just being themselves, and they’ve really inspired me. It’s amazing to see.”
This year, Seeva has much to look forward to with the release of his upcoming EP, Afterthoughts, on May 13. Alongside ‘Gemini Moon’, the EP also boasts ‘Twenty-Two’, a soft, dreamy heartbreak anthem, as its first single to be released. “It (Afterthoughts) is much more emotional. I wrote it after being heartbroken, and that always leaves a lot to be written about, so it’s very emotional, it’s very open, and it’s very queer – not because I’ve tried to make it queer, just because that’s who I am and I’ve been honest in my lyrics. It’s by far so much more collaborative than the album. I think every song has a different writer who wasn’t on the one before. It’s such a team effort, and I think it helps me be myself more when I have someone else in the room with me, kind of validating how I feel. I say something, and instead of me being ‘Oh no, that’s too much’, I now have someone else in the room saying ‘No, that’s great, go with it’.”
Seeva is also scheduled to perform Afterthoughts at their headline gig on June 1 at Colours, Hoxton, London. “I’m so excited to perform. I haven’t even got to perform the album because of lockdown after lockdown, so it’s beyond exciting for me to be able to show people my music.”
Moving forward, a fresh perspective is once again on the horizon. “I think I need to get through this project to sit down and work out what happens next and what I’d like to put out now, because I think I’m in a very different place again. I’m very happy now, I’m very settled. I guess now, it’ll be about writing about some happy stuff, I hope, which is different for me!”
