Brighton-based rising popstar Salt Ashes (aka Veiga Sanchez) premieres her new video for ‘Raided’ on Wonderland.

Salt Ashes’ strain of pop music explores the darkness in disco, with its deep, cold electronics matched with the light, almost shimmering tones of Sanchez’s voice. With her debut single, ‘Somebody’, Sanchez was eager to convey a break-up with industrial synths, arpeggiators, yearning vocal and a rather erotic video.

Building on that ‘Raided’ has more complexity in its materials. The sparse, house-y verses take tips from minimal R&B, while the vocal sits firmly in the ethereal. Meanwhile, driving percussion is matched with pumps of electronics, wooshing pads and a chorus that catches you with first listen. With the video, Sanchez is exploring her dark side again. “I wanted to create something with a dark B-movie, late-night kind of vibe,” she says, “probably because I’d been watching a lot of Neo-noir, thriller movies at the time.

Working again with Debbie Scanlan and Liz Adams, who helped with the video for ‘If You Let Me Go’, Sanchez felt that her vision could be executed properly. “We wanted to create something trippy and surreal,” she continues, “with the idea of allowing the viewer to decide what is and isn’t reality.”

Words: Alim Kheraj