Brunette returns with her second single and her first music video since her Eurovision anthem ‘Future Lover’ dropped in March earlier this year.

‘Holiday Nostalgia’ is a curvy track layered with a cradling chorus, centered with a quick-tempoed rap, and finished off with an Armenian R&B verse that plants Brunette back again as a potential pop crossover sensation between the Armenian world and mainstream music. 

Sentimental about the end of a summer holiday romance, Brunette captivates daydreams with her ritual vocal range and imperious allure.

The track plays out like a romance film, its script filling out a three-act structure that sucks you in for seemingly hours. The first act flows with a soft and caressing verse that yearns for what seems to be a happy memory. 

The sound of birds, my lovers words;

Our golden hours, bright daisy flowers.

When the beat pauses right before its drop into an addictive chorus, you realize this is not going to be some normal love song.

Brunette glides into her second verse with what initially caught her the attention of many online: her harmonic rapping. She begins her verse melodically in beat before shifting up her flow, slicing in words in between bass kicks. Her fast rhymes paint the feeling of her mind racing as she begins to realize her lover from her past memory is no longer there.

Summer, sun, sea;

The storms are raging on the rolling sea;

I'm feeling all alone like them wild and free;

Sometimes I feel like I'm nobody.

The Eurovisions star uses her Armenian lyrics in her last verse to truly express how she wishes for a clean break from her lost summer holiday love. 

Երբ մենիկ արտասվեմ մեռնեմ իմ սիրուն յար;

Երբ փախչիմ հետդ ժայռ ու սար իմ սիրուն յար;

Դու ցամքած ծաղիկ խոստացար իմ սիրուն յար;

Ջախջախիր սիրտս ու քնար այ սիրուն յա՛ր, իմ սիրուն յար.

Brunette's producer and close collaborator Nare Manukyan ups her game with a genre-bending production on ‘Holiday Nostalgia’, incorporating house music beat drops, subtly using ambient bird songs to paint a “laying on the grass daydreaming” motif, all while keeping true to a hip-hop and R&B blend of a bassline. 

Manukyan, who also produced Brunette’s Eurovision song ‘Future Lover’, crafts a wavy synth-like background layer around Brunette's spiraling lyrics as her snares race to keep up with Brunette’s cadence. As the third and final act of ‘Holiday Nostalgia’ braces itself, Manukyan and Burnette turn the Armenian verse into a crescendo before the song’s final flight descends, where we hear Brunette put her full vocal range on display.  

It is refreshing to hear innovative sounds from two collaborators paving their own paths, and the sonic exploration is visualized incredibly in the ‘Holiday Nostalgia’ music video directed and shot by Suren Tadevosyan. 

While the video avoids displaying a narrative storyline, the performance scenes allow Brunette to subliminally authenticate her reminiscing lyrics and set the tone of her fashion presence. 

Tadevosyan, a prominent music video director and the cinematographer of the Eric Esraelian and Serj Tankian-produced documentary ‘Invisible Republic’, takes on four distinct looks with her cinematography style. 

For the film nerds, the main camerawork style feels like a hand-held shoulder rig, which makes each frame unique and a new painting in itself while allowing for his editor Robert Pash to quickly edit between all the looks seemingly on beat with the camera work and beat. Tadevosyan uses a VHS-style black and white look flawlessly, continuing with a super shaky and zoom aesthetic that builds out the nostalgia drawn from the song’s namesake. Continuing the VHS look, Tadevosyan puts on a security-camera fish eye to shoot down on Brunette in a close-up, making it feel like she is looking at herself in a video playback mirror.

The most stark setup is the locked off tripod shot that captures Brunette center frame with her braid running down to floor. It is a bold cross from the rest of the video’s style, yet one that captures your attention and breaks out of any chance of monotony. Tadevosyan makes Brunette feel almost extra-terrestrial in her landing there, as the singer dawns a futuristic white turtleneck dress as her already futuristic song moonwalks around her. 

The collaboration of forces on ‘Holiday Nostalgia’ increases ever more desire for an EP or album from Burnette, especially with the consideration there is an ever-growing creative team around her, in addition to her regularly performing live in Yerevan with Parg, Gayane Karapetyan, and Jan Abrahamyan of their cover band collective Project 12. 

An album from Brunette would be a sure-tell sign she is ready to cement herself beyond just a Eurovision selection. Where she wants to go, we’ll have to wait to see.

Watch the full music video to Brunette's 'Holiday Nostalgia':