Clean Bandit x Chlöe x Omah Lay – Company
Clean Bandit close out a busy summer with the release of “Company” from Clean Bandit x Chlöe x Omah Lay. Featuring a star-studded line-up, the track is the first taste of the yet-to-be announced new studio album from Clean Bandit, due for release next year via their own label, CB X. The video for “Company” is written and directed by Clean Bandit.
“Company” is written and performed by GRAMMY-winning collective Clean Bandit in collaboration with GRAMMY®-nominated pop-R&B singer, songwriter, and producer Chlöe and Omah Lay, the GRAMMY®-nominated, global Nigerian singer-songwriter-producer sensation. With its vibrant melodies and warm end-of-summer feeling, “Company” captures themes of desire, yearning and human connection in an arresting meeting of creative energies. Chlöe’s vocals and effortless ad-libs sit alongside Omah Lay’s distinctive Afro-fusion delivery, with Clean Bandit’s signature sonic style and production delivering the track’s dancefloor-ready edge.
Grace Chatto (Clean Bandit) said of the track – “I feel very summery and happy listening to this song. The chord progressions are so Jack (Patterson of Clean Bandit). I love Chlöe’s voice and energy, and her ad libs are everything. I first met her in Toronto a few years ago, and it’s been a special creative journey,” adding “We’ve been working with a number of artists and producers in Nigeria and have written a few songs with Omah Lay over the past 5 years. It’s good to finally release this one together, I hope the others will arise at some point too!”
Chlöe added – “From the moment Clean Bandit played me this song, I fell in love. It perfectly captures something we all feel: none of us want to be alone. At the end of the day, we don’t need material things, we just want the company of someone we love. The melodies are so infectious, and I love the juxtaposition between how colorful and vibrant the song feels and the visual world we created for the video, where we chose to keep everything neutral and the colors muted.”
Omah Lay said – “When I first met Jack and Grace in 2022, we wrote a song in Jack’s house. ‘Company’ came later. I liked that they directed the music video themselves.”
The video for “Company” was written and directed by Clean Bandit’s Grace Chatto and Jack Patterson and also edited by Jack. Shot last month on the site of a former state hospital in the Los Angeles area, it reflects the track’s themes of solitude and connection, and features architectural dance sequences composed by award-winning choreographer, director and performance artist MaggZ.
Grace Chatto said of the video – “It is a celebration. We also wanted to explore the pull between togetherness and aloneness, through architectural dance pieces created by Maggz. It was serendipitous because I have admired her choreography for a while and she lives in Australia. The day I reached out to her she had literally landed in L.A. with a one-way ticket, which is where Chlöe Bailey and Omah Lay were in this moment. Jack and I dashed there a few days later and began creating the film. The last videos we directed in L.A. were ‘Solo’ and ‘Baby’, but this was a very long time ago so we decided to build an entirely new crew. We found an abandoned state hospital in California, and shot in the huge kitchen and power plant rooms there. We interwove the dancers with the building’s interior and exterior and it was so inspirational shooting Chlöe and Omah.”
The first track to be made available on Clean Bandit’s own new label, CB X is ‘I Don’t Wanna Hurt You’ from Clean Bandit X Biig Piig. Written and performed by Clean Bandit and alt pop star Biig Piig, the track immediately conjures up a summer dancefloor with classic Clean Bandit elements including rich strings, plucked arpeggios and a jagged 2-step drum pattern; coupled with the soft, melancholic vocals of Irish musician, singer, rapper and songwriter Biig Piig.
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