Sevun’s “Afterglow” captures the urge to keep moving when being alone with yourself becomes too difficult. She builds the track around a restless form of escapism, chasing someone else’s energy and light in the hope of feeling whole. That search never quite reaches its destination. The song stays close to the moment when movement becomes a way to avoid what waits underneath.
“Afterglow” introduces the world of Fever Dream, a visual album that extends Sevun’s work across music and other art forms. She writes, produces, records and engineers her own material, drawing on alternative rock and electronic experimentation. This first single sets up a project shaped by that personal approach, with the search for light already carrying the possibility of another restless night.
For those who might not know you yet, how would you introduce yourself?
I am Sevun. An alien princess. I am from Toronto, Canada, and I write, produce and record my own music. I hug trees and feel at home near rocks and water. I am an observer. I see others more clearly than I see myself. I get overwhelmed by the magnitude and intensity of my own emotions, so I channel them into songs.
I often feel as though I was dropped here from some other Universe. I only really feel like I belong where there is music. It is my safe space. It brings out the best in me. It has at times been my sole companion. Music is the force which guides my life. Through my art, I like to push myself to extremes. I have a hunger to find where I am most scared or uncomfortable, and to challenge myself to go there and overcome it.
If you had to bottle up your sound into just three words, which ones would you choose?
Ethereal, Chaotic, Lyrical
Which artists (not only music-related) or moments have left the biggest mark on your music?
When I was 18, I moved to Australia, and I was suddenly exposed to a world of music that I hadn’t been privy to before. I discovered techno, psytrance, Julia Jacklin, Tash Sultana, drum circles, and so much music that blurred the lines between lyricism, psychedelia and experimentation. I remember hearing Tash Sultana for the first time and feeling like the wind had been knocked out of me. Around the same time, I went to my first techno club, Revolver, and the music made me feel so alive, like I could dance forever. It was exhilarating. During this period, I fell deeply in love with dancing and electronic music, but also had incredibly powerful experiences listening to psychedelic infused folk and indie music. I think this period of my life probably left the biggest mark on my music. It broadened my perspective on what music could be and showed me that identifying with a single genre can be quite confining. To be impacted so deeply by so many different types of music is to be human and multifaceted.
When you hit play on your songs, what kind of feeling takes over?
I feel overcome. Like I am being swept away by a current and I have to surrender to where it wants to take me.
If you could team up with anyone in the world, no limits, who would be that dream collaborator?
I couldn’t choose one!!! FKA Twigs has been an artistic inspiration to me since I was 15, so it would be a dream to collab with her. Like obviously musically collaborating, but also doing a performance art piece or something just very avante garde and odd. I feel so seen in her work. I love Fontaines D.C. for their experimentation and lyricism, and I have been dreaming about collabing with them since I first got into their music. Their work brings me deeper into myself and has gotten me through so much. I really think we could make the moodiest, craziest, most haunting music. And because I dream of making music for the girlies to shake a$$ to in the club, I would love to collaborate with Fcukers. Their music makes me go CRAZY. I can’t stop dancing when I hear them.
What are you working on now, and what are your plans for the future? Anything exciting you can tell us about?
I’m currently rolling out Fever Dream, my second album. Fever Dream is an attempt at transmuting a really difficult period of my life into an art piece. It’s honestly so hard to explain, but during this period I felt like I was watching life from outside my body, but also felt verything with extreme intensity. It was incredibly bizarre and distressing, but I thought “What if I make a project that sounds and looks like this hyperreality/unreality feels?” From that came Fever Dream, a 10-song album that is accompanied by a full-album length visual experience, which I filmed in Berlin.
Afterglow is the first single from this project, and more will be released in 2027. My focus has been on finishing this project for so long. Now that I have almost finished birthing it, I am excited to start writing new music, and also experimenting more with film.
Can you walk us through the story or emotion behind “Afterglow ”? If there´s a video, can you tell us about the storytelling and the visual approach to it.
Afterglow is a song about escapism. It is wanting to lose yourself in someone else, in their body, in their world, as a way to not feel your own gnawing emptiness or pain. I was inspired by a rave I went to that was in a forest. There was so much stimuli, so much beauty, so many people, but none of it could dull the pain inside. I just wanted more than anything to have someone with me, that I could just scape into with passion and lust, and have them pour everything good and happy into me.
There is a video! It was filmed in Spreewald, Germany about a year ago with my dear friend and collaborator Lucie Mink. The video for Afterglow is part of the full visual film for Fever Dream. We wanted every video of the album to feel like it is out of a fairytale, and for Afterglow specifically, we created a visual that is more of a moving breathing painting than it is a narrative. It is a surrealist meditation on beauty and nature. While the music is desperately trying to escape itself, the visuals focus on the beauty that is everywhere around us.
