Self-described “popstar for dorks” Geoff Ong has released his new single, ‘I Don’t Know’, from his debut album.
Listen here and watch Geoff’s self-made ‘isolation’ video’ premiering now on RNZ Music. Click HERE.
The Auckland-based singer-songwriter and producer is on a mission to make pop music with authenticity and connection, especially for people who don’t always feel like they fit in and ‘I Don’t Know’ is just that!
Written, produced, mixed, and mastered in his Auckland bedroom, ‘I Don’t Know’ is about a feeling you can’t quite put your finger on. “Do you ever feel a creeping, inescapable, sense of millennial angst? Well, do I have the song for you!” says Geoff. “It’s about struggling to figure out what’s going on in your brain so you can actually explain it to someone. I suppose at the core of it, it’s about our desire as humans to be heard and understood, even when we don’t entirely understand ourselves.”
Sonically, Geoff describes ‘I Don’t Know’ as a “modern pop song that you can groove to. Head-bob-ability is a really important factor to me as a producer.”
With Geoff on lockdown with the rest of New Zealand, he turned his talents to also making the song’s video. “I really enjoy making music videos with a quirky or offbeat element to them. When it came to making the video for this song, I was really struggling for ideas due to being in lockdown along with the rest of NZ. I was like, ‘How can I make it interesting if it’s just me around the house?’ I’d been thinking about just doing a simple performance video and using face filters as a way to make the video a bit less serious, but then I stumbled across a blog post talking about how AR (augmented reality) filters are “the new frontier for surrealist art” and I was like ‘DUDE this is awesome!’”
“So I went on an Instagram deep dive and found a whole lot of cool AR filters and here we are! It all happened very quickly. Along the way it made me think about technology and how often I use it as an escape from uncomfortable thoughts and feelings, so I decided to use that thought as a way to tie the whole video together thematically.”
Geoff first made his mark with the release of his 2015 EP BOSTON. Now as he gears up to release his debut record – due out later this year – he describes ‘I Don’t Know’ as the flagbearer for the album.
