It feels like a decade ago at this point, but it was around this time last year when we were slotting Artemas‘ unfuckwithable alt-pop bop “i like the way you kiss me” into our Year in ReView column hyping 2024’s best tracks.
A lot has happened in the time since, including the release of the English songwriter’s stream-horny mixtape LOVERCORE, but we fast-forward past all that and into the uneven now with a new tune called “you and i could never be friends.” In lieu of an artist quote explaining the song’s meaning, we’re just gonna assume it’s the opposite of what the White Stripes wanted nearly 25 years ago. Sometimes it’s just that simple.
But the beauty of Artemas isn’t in the obvious description or the forced reveal, it’s buried between the sheets and just out of eyesight and earshot, as “you and i could never be friends” acts as a haunting bass-throbber cautionary tale, calling back The Weeknd’s Beauty Behind the Madness-era as a gritty alt-R&B seducer with witch house drugs coursing through its battered veins. It’s another soundtrack for that moment just before 5 a.m. when a decision has to be made, and like a character in a Bret Easton Ellis novel, sometimes not making a decision is the decision.
And it should sound dope when ol’ Art swings back into Boston, one of many stops of his LOVERCORE ON Tour run, which takes Vanyaland fave Isabel LaRosa along for a ride that touches down at Big Night Live on March 11. Bring a non-friend, Jack.