Today London-based singer Viji – aka Vanilla Jenner – releases her new EP. The 6- track EP titled Cali is her third release on the Dirty Hit record label. To celebrate the release Viji shares the music video for “Feel It”.
On the track Viji says, “‘Feel It’ is the first writing collaboration with my long time producer Dave McCracken. It was one of those songs that came out without any effort! The lyrics are all about pushing actions to the limit in order to feel something and embracing the chaos.” On the visual she adds, “The video has the same air of recklessness, inviting a badass biker into the picture who drove me around for a day. Hands in the air, in and around the tunnels of London, the performance based video is playful and fast pace. The film ‘Fallen Angels’ by Wong Kar-wai was a big reference. My favourite part was changing location, because the biker flew through the roads which was pretty dope. It was a really fun shoot!”
Watch the video for ‘Feel It’ – BELOW:
As a teenager in Austria, rising alt-pop artist Viji was always searching for something more. Fuelled by an obsession with US TV shows and pop culture of the time, she dreamt of making an imprint on this world. Years later and now signed, Viji is building a world for herself that fulfils all her desires. Over the last 15 months, she has built the foundations of her career on songs that breathe new life into ‘90s and ’00s- inspired guitar-driven sounds, upping her inventiveness with each release. Her debut EP, Are You In My Head, was more straightforward plaid-tinged grunge-pop, before 2021’s Suck It EP invited fresh synth elements into the mix, adding more dimensions to her core sound.
Her third EP, Cali, moves things forward once again, leaning into some of the less six-string focused of Viji’s musical loves. You can hear components of hip-hop and R&B in her infectious, sing-songy vocal rhythms, while instrumentally, she takes new adventures in electronics as well as the hefty guitar lines she’s deployed thus far. “I listen to Frank Ocean religiously, but also Tyler, The Creator, Mos Def and a lot of hip-hop and pop artists,” she notes. “I think that always translated a little before – the beats were never straight rock beats – but now I’ve tapped into it a little bit more.”
The creative force is focused on a goal that’s very important to her – making records that people want to listen to on repeat. It’s a habit she’s had since she was young, listing off the likes of Nirvana, Blood Orange and Alex G as artists who’ve all been on endless rotation at various stages of her life. “I feel like it’s a breath of fresh air when you find something you really love,” Viji says. As her most infectious release yet, the Cali EP practically demands you hit ‘repeat all’ – you’d be foolish to try and resist it.
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