Carmen Villain – “Red Desert”
It’s been four years since fashion model Carmen Maria Hillestad took on the moniker Carmen Villain and released her debut album Sleeper. Today she’s officially announcing her second LP, Infinite Avenue. Villain’s self-produced sophomore project weaves an intricate web of emotions brought on by womanhood in the 21st century, and it features a guest appearance from another great artist exploring those themes, Jenny Hval.
Our next glimpse of Infinite Avenue — following last month’s “Planetarium,” which closes out the tracklist — is “Red Desert.” The song is named after the infamous Italian film from 1965 directed by Michelangelo Antonioni. Villian explains the significance of Red Desert to her new single as well as the album as a whole: “To me the movie feels like a perfect visual representation of what it can be like to be anxious and uncomfortable in your head sometimes.”
Villain’s “Red Desert” is viscous like honey, a spectral existential contemplation that seems to find Villain free-floating in the cosmos, suffocating not from lack of oxygen but pragmatic thought. “I’ve got potential but there’s demons in me, it all means nothing,” she delicately sings. Get lost in its slow churn below.
Tracklist:
01 “Infinite Avenue”
02 “Red Desert”
03 “Simple Things”
04 “Quietly”
05 “Borders” (Feat. Jenny Hval)
06 “She’s Gone To California”
07 “Connected”
08 “The Moon Will Always Be There”
09 “Water”
10 “Planetarium”
Infinite Avenue is out 9/8 on Smalltown Supersound. Pre-order here.
