Gaze into the deep with Gao The Arsonist on his new release Dead Leaves. It is a somewhat gritty and mysterious dance with dark issues that is intoxicating. It’s an enigma with references easily misinterpreted, though I’ll leave that to the listener.
Gao The Arsonist explained his theory of the track to us and says it “is about the death of infatuation. The sentiment can be captured in the hook. “Dead Leaves, camouflage” refers to that loss of passion, that many choose to ignore and hide from, staying in the relationship either for security, out of loneliness, fear or whatever else.”
He says he plays with “imagery and metaphor, always symbolising how diving into a relationship purely based on that initial sense of euphoria and expecting it to be something deeper is essentially dooming yourself.”
Gao The Arsonist has been with his girlfriend Sal for five years, who features on the track, and he comments that Dead Leaves is “both a general commentary on relationships and also an alternate universe where we didn’t figure this out. Early on in our relationship this really could have been us but that time came with a lot of revelations that now reside peacefully in this track.”
Gao’s hip hop influenced flow bonds intimately on the haunting instrumentals with a seductive quality, but there are also elements of punk rock. Dead Leaves is a genre-bending track that draws you deeper the more you listen to it. And each time, it holds on to a part of you.