Biita Houdei shares ‘Night Fright’, the latest preview of forthcoming album This Bed Was Made For Me, due September 18. Exploring two contrasting relationships – one turbulent, the other gentle – the track finds Houdei confronting the version of herself shaped by the former and ultimately attempting to break free.
Houdei’s ethereal, mesmerising vocal takes centre stage within an earthy blend of cinematic folk, with Haley Heynderickx contributing banjo, harmonies and handclaps alongside flourishes of cello and flute. Shades of Weyes Blood, Vashti Bunyan and Judee Sill emerge, but there’s something subtly unsettling beneath its pastoral beauty. Strings occasionally take on an eerie, horror-score-like vibrato, allowing darkness to creep into an otherwise organic soundscape.
That darkness takes physical form in the accompanying video. Candlelit rooms and striking shafts of light initially create something resembling gothic folk horror before Houdei transforms into a possessed, Exorcist-like version of herself. A newer incarnation then appears to fight off this demonic former self through wonderfully jerky choreography, bringing the song’s theme of breaking free from the person you’ve become within a damaging relationship vividly to life. Created entirely with practical effects, it’s creepy, beautiful and far more meaningful than its horror imagery initially suggests.
