:3LON Takes a Quantum Leap
Music

:3LON Takes a Quantum Leap

Fresh off tracks for London-based label Hyperdub and SHERELLE's own imprint compilation, Baltimore-based :3LON is quickly making a name for themselves with a futuristic blend of R&B and experimental beats folded into a cybernetic universe of their own design.

Gearing up for the release of their debut EP, :3LON is back with the project's first offering, "Quantum Leaping." Featuring the artist's own ethereal falsetto sprawling over a bed of skittering breaks and crystalline synths, the track sees :3LON create a sort of alien ballad, writing from the perspective of a lover hopping from one dimension to the next.

The track arrives alongside a new blacklit visual that further warps and distorts reality under a disorienting laser array.

"When I first started the project I really wanted to create music that I could envision in a racing video game, but then it began to evolve into this sort of afrofuturist concept," :3LON says. "My first EP was really experimental for me and I sampled a lot of natural sounds for the percussion. But with this project I wanted to experiment with breaks and different kinds of chord progressions that contrasted the moody vibe I created sonically in my first EP."

The artist goes on to explain that "I had already decided that I was gonna make an EP by myself and the songs would tell the story of this futuristic landscape I created in my mind. This song felt like it immediately resonated with that concept, and the lyrics and everything came pretty fast. I sat on this song for a while cause a friend of mine said it was boring and It was a huge blow to my ego. But then my manager heard it and urged me to finish it and I was like, 'Wait someone likes this? Maybe someone else will too?'"

Watch the PAPER premiere of :3LON's "Quantum Leaping," below.

Photo courtesy of :3LON