Hi there dear reader, my name is Ari aka Smilegoth, and I am a part of the music trio Untitled (Halo). We <3 OGBFF (I love DJing their pop-ups) and all the cool, fashionable, boundaryyy pushing people apart of this community! Me and my friends Jack and Jay aka Untitled (Halo) made a song about the dearest and nearest wine bar, El Prado, have you ever heard about it? The track isn’t necessarily about El Prado, but we’d like to think this song will remind you of a night spent there, or a night out in general. It’s night time, your friend is lighting up a cigarette, you make eye contact with someone then quickly glance elsewhere, you drink a glass of red wine, you chat with a friend, you laugh, cry, kiss … it's a freestyle, “El Prado Freestyle.”
With that said, our first single “El Prado Freestyle” is out NOW with a music video made just for your viewing pleasure. We made this song originally in my bedroom as a freestyle. My friend and bandmate Jay had come over and told me about this girl he just met at El Prado - I could tell how excited he was about this. So, I freestyle some lyrics over his beat, inspired by my friend's recent ephemeral yet powerful encounter with this girl at the wine bar, and from that, our track “El Prado Freestyle” was born. The lyrics that spewed from my head were, “Climbing in a tree cause you wont,” “swimming in a creek all alone,” “yeah he met a girl at the bar,” “thought that you told me I’m a star.” It’s a back and forth internal dialogue. He loves me, he loves me not. Many nights out are spent in contemplation - perhaps that's only me, but I typically think a lot after a night out, about the people I was with, strangers, synchronicities I may notice, the purpose of even “going out” itself. It’s odd to dissect human interaction - but this track does that, we dissect a youthful moment caught at the wine bar. Hazy, a bit liminal, yet still light-hearted. Our original freestyle became more than a song, but a depiction of a cultural moment. Why do so many young cool people linger outside of El Prado? There’s a mystery to that, but in our video, we wanted to capture the essence of this. Jack, our bandmate who made the video, says regarding the filming that “with the fast / slow mo / glitchy clips, I wanted it (the moment) to feel fragmented, not to say fleeting, but maybe that half forgotten memories.” Essentially, we just filmed our friends hanging out, sipping wine, smoking, vibing as one would say. We got our beautiful pals Samone and Donovan to makeout in the Prado bathroom while the three of us were squeezed next to them, singing the final lyrics of the song into the camera. Aside from this, our video and song had no real plan other than to capture the moment.
El Prado, whether you like it not, is a subculture in and of itself. The black outfits, the mullets, the ironic dad caps, empty wine glasses consuming the tops of spaces, and a small concrete outdoor space flooded with young people. There’s nothing quite like it, and perhaps a new El Prado will dawn someday, but for now, this is where it's at, this is where your freestyle can happen.
