TOPBOY

The glamour of shop windows and the rustle of banknotes – like a fleeting fragment of a dream of luxury, where everything is measured in codes, car boots and numbers in bank accounts. The night streets of Paris turn into a catwalk: a Rolls-Royce pulls up, pockets full of fifty-pound notes, nineteen pairs of new clothes in the wardrobe, and a voice full of confidence that any obstacle can be overcome in an instant. There is the smell of risk and the slight brutality of threats - ‘get out, or else...’ - like the soundtrack to films about fast money and even faster loss of sleep.

The vocals are like a diary entry for those who are used to living on the move: bragging coexists with pragmatic cruelty, success with constant vigilance. There is an ironic twist to this: the appearance of a perfect life crumbles as soon as you look at the details - shadows follow the glamour of the suits, and the ‘ascent’ has left a bitter taste of broken promises. The night is beautiful but cold; the only constant is moving forward, the road and the careful counting of steps taken.