Splitscreen by Arthur Valentine

Splitscreen is Arthur Valentine’s debut EP, the product of years bouncing ideas around with friends in home studios, augmenting his voice with prismatic autotuned harmonies, fluttering minimal percussion, and airy lead synths. Its DIY origins don’t hold back the results - earning praise from critics, with District Magazine likening it to BROCKHAMPTON’s softer cuts, Frank Ocean’s lyrical confessions, and Clairo’s bedroom minimalism.

It’s pristine pop with modern R&B sensibilities, powered by rather unlikely influences and collaborations. Two moments on the EP show it best: final single Track 3, releasing one week before the project itself, has an infectious beat-switch at the back end of the track that sees a guitar riff seize space over a dark, trap-influenced palette. Rainbow Road, the focus track for the project, paints its outro with the unlikely texture of a Memphis rap sample. One of the producers swears there’s a sample of the Korean version of the Cory in the House theme in one of the tracks.

Writing about the project, Arthur Valentine notes the power of these moments, and how the wider aesthetic of the project bloomed from there:

“For years I felt like I was living these two contrasting lives: one half of my time was spent writing and recording music, the other half was spent completing a law degree I never really wanted. I was spending an awful lot of time on the road - I would write lyrics on the bus or play demos driving in my car and just sing different melodies over the beats. These themes of duality and transience started to rear their heads in the music. When it came to recording and producing the tracks, Drew, Jack and I wanted to make production and songwriting choices that mirrored these themes - beat switches, changes in time signatures, contrasting elements running alongside each other throughout the tracks.

From here that I came up with the “Splitscreen” concept - using the image of a multiplayer, split-screen racing game to represent these contrasts. I approached Neil O’Sullivan Greene after seeing the 3D environments he was building for Matt’s Ghostking Is Dead artwork. I explained to him what I had in mind for the art direction, and we ended up actually creating a playable racing game to accompany the EP.”

Taking its cues from 90s arcade classics like Daytona USA, the Splitscreen game was used to create the EP’s artwork, is available for download to coincide with the EP’s release, and is even being experimented with as an interactive backdrop for live shows.

Bonus content included in this Bandcamp release includes a cheat code for the video game and a download link to the full, 20-track original soundtrack to the Splitscreen video game as created by Actualacid using melodies and themes from the EP.

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