“Who are you?/ Forgive me, I'm hopeless with faces/ But you sing with a voice like I know you”: if you were not immediately transfixed by Tom Higham’s captivatingly emotive falsetto, you might interpret the opening verses of Aquilo’s “Who Are You” as ironic meta-commentary. After 6 EPs, a debut LP (Silhouettes, released in January this year), and a music video trilogy, the ‘two sad lads’ from Lancashire (Higham and Ben Fletcher) finally appear in their own music video. The panicked conflict they enact in the desert of Joshua Tree National Park in California immediately strikes a contrast with their characteristically melancholic, wintry and atmospheric brand of dream-pop. There’s a car chase and a heated confrontation, which results in a desert bonfire of unknown entities.
The song, which is the final track from Side A of their new two-part album ii, is yet another testament to their ability to evoke raw and heavy emotions within a fragile tapestry of lush electronica and subdued trumpets. You cannot tell if the song is addressed to a close friend, a family member or a significant other, but nevertheless remain spellbound by the intensity of it all. At their skilled hands, the need for the interpersonal to be clearly defined becomes unmistakably urgent: 'Cause just with a smile, I'm around you/ And I'll try my best like I know you/ Who are you?/ Who are you to me?’.
