S.F. Johnson has come a long way from the start of his musical career as a songwriter under the Leeds-based band Goodbye Chanel, later known as Modern Pleasure. The first jump came in 2018, with a move to Tokyo inspiring the artist to explore his abilities as a solo artist, releasing the EP ‘Songs from an Empty Orchestra’ three years after.
Now, the artist looks ahead to his next big swing on the industry, with a successful run of inspired, relatable and refreshing singles leading into his highly-anticipated LP ‘Digital Utopia’. The project promises to lean into the storytelling Johnson has shown so far, wrapped in his hazy, bewitching signature sound.
The latest of these singles is ‘All Night’, a track laced in all the smokiness that we’ve come to expect from the artist. A gorgeously spacey electric guitar starts us off, with a powerful drums line opening into a fuzzy lead guitar that rockets the energy through the roof. Glittery synth arpeggios back up a lush vocal performance, with melancholy and wisdom drenching each line. When all this instrumentation comes to a head in the chorus, the pensive lyricism continues to shine through. Intricate layers keep you engaged from start to finish, with a dynamic and biting guitar solo putting the icing on the cake.
Johnson explains the track, “’All Night’ portrays the life of a fed-up, beatdown office worker ‘Tim’ – who looks to escape the mundane trappings of everyday life through a VR platform called ‘Digital Utopia’ that he discovers while procrastinating at work. The vision for the video came from director Bo Morgan and myself after evenings chatting about the meaning of the song. We wanted to bring another layer to it, and decided to play around with the idea of an alternate digital reality. More and more we are looking for an escape from our lives in some way through the digital world – in social media, video gaming, and content creation. We can curate exactly who we want to be, but it’s not real, and I’ve always found that interesting.”
