100 Greatest Songs of the 2010’s #74 2814 – 新しい日の誕生

Released : 2014

All music, in one way or another, is an exploration of the soul: whether it’s a three minute pop song to a half hour slab of unlistenable distortion, the common denominator is how it makes the listener shape their own experience, a sensation which is wholly unique to every perception on the planet.

2814 are a duo from Hong Kong inspired by the visual dynamics of director Wong Kar-wai. They produce music which draws from a web of inspirations that take in the burgeoning fascination of the future as it was portrayed in the past, arcs that trace from Ridley Scott to the dystopian pre-Space Shuttle visions of intergalactic expansion by the likes of Stewart Cowley and Edmund Cooper.

One part of them, HKE, has spoken of how this track is embedded with “the concepts of futurism, romance, surreality and nostalgia”. It’s an epic, thirteen minute plus journey conducted almost entirely it feels like at night and in the rain: by the time it’s over you’ll have forgotten whatever you believe is the real world is completely.