Montreal-based artist Skiifall drops his first single of the new year, in the form of a feature on the COLORS video series. Entitled “bloodclarrt business”, it is his debut on the platform, which has hosted an array of popular artists including Unknown T and Billie Eilish. Known for its minimalistic style, COLORS is acknowledged as one of the major live music channels on YouTube, acclaimed for promoting new, upcoming artists. Watch Skiifall’s COLORS performance below:
Skiifall has enjoyed a meteoric rise in the last year, having released a number of highly acclaimed singles including ‘Ting Tun Up’, which later spawned a sequel featuring Kilburn-based rapper Knucks. He has since dropped his debut EP WOIIYOIE TAPES Vol. 1 back in August 2021, containing the beautiful “My Gully” and the highly popular track “Lost Angeles”. Later that year, he featured alongside modern hip-hop/jazz stalwarts BADBADNOTGOOD on “Break of Dawn”. Now, having his very own, well-deserved COLORS show, Skiifall boasts an illustrious feature list despite not having yet dropped an album.
The COLORS series, a product of the German-based ColorsxStudios, is the ideal platform for an artist like Skiifall, whose golden years are soon to come. The platform is unique for their wide variety of artists from all modern genres and styles. On their website, this ethos is stressed: “In the context of an increasingly fragmented and saturated scene we seek to provide clarity and calm, offering a minimalistic stage to shine a spotlight on the artists and give them the opportunity to present their music without distraction. All colors, no genres.”
The series, which features artists solo against a monochrome background, is unique in providing the bare minimum for a music video, simply featuring the artist(s), some musical equipment, and little else. Rather than NPR’s Tiny Desk series that features artists atop a cluttered backdrop and foreground, and BBC’s Live Lounge which mimics a live concert, the COLORS shows force the viewer to focus only on the music and the monochrome backdrop that typifies the aura (hence the COLORS name).
Also unlike other live music channels on YouTube, COLORS offers the videos up on streaming platforms, with each performance spawning its own single. The shows potential to launch careers is anything but a speculative remark; Chartmetric researched the growth of particular artists after their featuring on COLORS, showing that artists who featured on the platform averaged a 3.5% growth after the feature. In fact, Mahalia is quoted as saying COLORS was the moment that changed my whole career”, speaking to TIME. Up next on the platform is Dominican-Italian singer YEИDRY alongside Lous and the Yakuza.
Listen to Skiifall’s 2021 EP WOIIYOIE TAPES Vol. 1 below:
