American-born songwriter currently based in London, Daniel Padgett’s music explores queer relationships by distorting the traditional storytelling techniques of folk and Americana. Today Padgett has dropped the video for his latest single, “First Sight.”

Padgett met Beth Fletcher, the video’s director, in North Carolina around 2013 when he was living in Winston-Salem. Having dropped out of UNC School of the Arts film school a few years before, Daniel was still connected with many of its alumni and students. Padgett moved to Brooklyn in 2016 but stayed in touch with Beth who also eventually found her way to New York.

In early talks about the music video, Fletcher led with strong visual imagery that the song inspired. Fletcher picked up on themes of “suffocation, isolation, and what it’s like to break free of that. Through the use of analogue screens and a multi-routed live feed, we tried to bring the feeling of getting trapped inside oneself and how turning outward frees us to the abounding space of the surrounding world. The images on the screen are representative of the feedback loop our mind becomes and how easily we forget that we’re in control of that image. If you find the strength to look up you can walk off screen and into an unrestricted world.”

Having seen them perform in Brooklyn venues over the years, Fletcher and Padgett felt that featuring Brooklyn-based performance artist Kinlaw seemed like a no-brainer. The choreography was developed in tandem with the analogue camera and screen techniques. Padgett also worked with London-based dancers to create an initial movement language, which Kinlaw used for some choreography inspiration.

At the moment, Padgett is working on a few new projects, some collaborative and some solo. He is in his last year of a Music Performance degree at Goldsmiths University—an institution known for challenging traditional industry norms. Padgett is also planning to release a sort of remix album to follow up on his solo release, which he hopes will feature other artists in his network—both in London and back in the US.