Cindy is a character born from a collaboration between Dutch producer, animator, and songwriter extraordinaire Kai Hugo aka Palmbomen, and actress and singer Blue LoLãn. Her art blends vintage pop with dreamy, shoegaze experimentation, music with film, and reality with head-spinning, multimedia character-building. Since her birth on Hugo’s 2015 Palmbomen II, Cindy has, in her touching, surreal way, pushed our conceptions of artistry, reality, and the human condition. On 2017’s Memories of Cindy, we explored her hometown, Carmel Vista, and on last year’s I’m Cindy, her own “lost” album, we started to learn Cindy’s backstory.

On “Mary,” one of my favorite tracks off this record, Cindy is in mourning. She sings to a lost friend, her cat Mary, who “some time ago… one day died alone.” She tells the story with the straightforward clarity of a child – “My mother brought her out, she did not move, and they took her away. We had her buried then, right when it happened there, and she was gone.” It is a crisp, clipped tale, but grief is not as short as death – “Still I say things now like, Mary I think of you, where are you now.” This speaks to the peculiarity of mourning – our inability to quite get our heads around the absence of someone. The bizarre dreamlike sound of Cindy’s music is well suited to the sensation – the odd, twinkling lead melodies, the simple, hypnotic groove, the cat meows, Cindy’s slightly flat, repetitive vocals. The back half of the song seems to fall into a shadow, with blares of saxophone, and a wider, darker bass tone. It’s a dramatic moment – a goodbye perhaps, or Mary floating up to kitty heaven.

Cindy’s new video seems to portray this heaven. The camera floats unmoored through hazy pink clouds, as a series of 3D CGI objects float by – a bunch of plump purple grapes, a casket, a stiff, orange cat. These are rendered in the graphics of a 2005 MMO – awkward, almost lifelike. Cindy, played by LoLãn, floats along with the rest, in a hazy, black and white video. It looks like an old movie role, or a half gone memory. Cindy’s eyes are full of heart-wrenching sadness, and they peer out, across the weird CGI cityscape, at the camera. They capture what makes Cindy so enthralling – the piercingly human core at the heart of her strange art.

Like every year, our team vote for their favourite tracks of the year. You can stream this list, as well as other tracks that were close to entering the top, via our Spotify and Apple Music playlists below. You can also check our Best Albums and Best EPs/Mixtapes of 2020.

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50. Julia-Sophie – “x0x”

49. Blue Hawaii – “Not my Boss!”

48. Zelma Stone – “Fly”

47. Young Ejecta – “Crayon Cactus”

46. Sedona – “Crying On My Own”

45. Zoee – “Rio’s”

44. Prince Innocence – “Angelyne”

43. Laura Groves – “Foolish Games”

42. Cindy Lee – “I Want You To Suffer”

41. Lido Pimienta- “Eso Que Tu Haces”

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40. Jayda G – “Both Of Us”

39. NNAMDÏ – “Perfect In My Mind”

38. Lomelda – “Hannah Sun”

37. Braids – “Young Buck”

36. Against All Logic, Estado Unido, FKA Twigs – “Alucinao”

35. oklou – “unearth me”

34. Kate NV – “Sayonara”

33. Agar Agar – “Nap”

32. Annie – “The Streets Where I Belong”

31. Beadadoobee – “Worth it”

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30. TOPS – “I Feel Alive”

29. Yves Tumor – “Gospel For A New Century”

28. Dua Lipa – “Physical”

27. Cakes da Killa, Proper Villains – “Don Dada”

26. Namasenda – “Wanted”

25. Ultraflex – “Never Forget My Baby”

24. Shamir – “On My Own”

23. Discovery Zone – “Dance II”

22. Couch Prints – “Of Drawing”

21. Nilüfer Yanya – “Crash”

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20. Cindy – “2y & 6m”

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19. Bullion – “We Had A Good Time”

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18. Kelly Lee Owens – “Melt!”

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17. Phoebe Bridgers – “Garden Song”

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16. Waxahatchee – “Can’t Do Much”

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15. Maria Minerva – “Apology”

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14. Shygirl – “FREAK”

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13. Jónsi, Robyn – “Salt Licorice”

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12. Perfume Genius – “On The Floor”

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11. Ela Minus – “Megapunk”

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10. Romy – “Lifetime”

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9. SAULT – “Wildfires”

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8. Soccer Mommy – “circle the drain”

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7. Eartheater – “Below The Clavicle”

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6. Helena Deland – “Comfort, Edge”

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5. Fiona Apple – “I Want You To Love Me”

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4. Charli XCX – “Forever”

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3. Dehd – “Loner”

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2. Christine and the Queens – “People, I’ve Been Sad”

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1. 070 Shake – “Guilty Conscience”

We’re big fans of Cindy here at Highclouds. One of the most ambitious musical projects we have come across recently, the Cindy experience is layered and multidisciplinary, mixing up music, real-life film, and animation. To put it shortly: Cindy Savalas is a character created by Palmbonen II mastermind Kai Hugo and brought into the flesh by the singer and actress Blue LoLan. The character was first brought into the picture in a song off Palmbomen II’s self-titled album, released in 2015. Since then, Cindy has been explored in myriad ways, finally leading to a full album detailing her backstory. We recently had the chance to have a chat with Hugo and go through the birth and gestation of the project, their new record, and what the future might hold for them.

In an age where the predominant trend in music is to wear your heart in your sleeve, it is refreshing to see someone coming up with a character and fully fleshing it out through different media. There is a coolness to Cindy, but that doesn’t necessarily imply detachment or impersonality. In fact, it might be argued that the very coolness that lures you in with its uncanny valley aesthetics is what opens the door to the heart of the project.

This is perfectly exemplified in Cindy’s new album, aptly titled I´m Cindy. Conjured up as Cindy Savalas’s lost album, the record is a mostly synthetic affair, every track boasting coatings of synths blanketing your ears. Cindy’s vocals, on the other hand, are everything but cold. She is basically whispering into your ear throughout the entire album, giving an eerie, contradictory feeling – think Twin Peaks but every scene, including the soppy ones, is happening in the Black Lodge. It’s like being personally lured by a cult leader, except that she also happens to be an otherworldly entity. Cindy is a human, but she’s not. Both our awareness of this paradox and the project’s playful, metanarrative acceptance of it (see the video for “Justin” as a prime example) mould our listening experience. Yes, we’re in on the joke. And we’re also in on the fact that, though this liminal reality might not be believable, it speaks to us.

Though the dream-pop and shoegaze influences are easily distinguishable, any sense of candidness produced by the vocals is instantly chaffed by the hypnotic, almost psychedelic loops that make up for most of the melodies in the record. Take lead single “Never Let Me Go“, which effectively consists of the same line sung over and over again. When speaking to Hugo, he made a point of the effectiveness of repetition: “We actually scrapped a lot of material for this album. For instance, I had written full verses for “Never Let Me Go”, but in the end I decided to keep it as it is on the record.”

Even the songs with a more conventional structure rely heavily on repetition, from the “I Will not let you down” mantra of “Justin” to the aloof “I remember how much fun we had” of “2y & 6m.” Both sides of the album, the more experimental and the song-based, have more than enough going for them to be equally admired. However, it must be said that the one peak of I’m Cindy is precisely its most openly heartfelt, and, shall we say, human moment. Built around the prettiest synthesiser line you can think of, acting both as hook and stepping stone, “I Love You” sees Cindy going as full out pop as she ever has. If there ever is a Cindy film, this is the song that will be used in its emotional peak, its glittery synths and breathy vocals instantly evoking the most intense moments of romance.

And to be fair, evocation is Cindy’s middle name at this point. There is a strong visual component to this music – hear it and watch the music videos playing in your mind; watch the videos without the sound on and Cindy’s vocals will start popping up in your head. Hugo and Blue LoLan are filmmaker and actor as much as they are producer and singer. And Cindy is, well, the brainchild of the two. “There is something of both of us in Cindy”, says Hugo when asked whether this project is a sort of impersonal outlet of emotions. “Blue definitely did an amazing job quite literally bringing Cindy into the flesh, but there’s also parts of me in her.”

The videos that accompany the album are bound to pique your interest as much as the music, if not more. When asked about the possibility of expanding the Cindy universe with more videos, Hugo understandably gets giddy. The combination of film and 3D animation results in an unsettling yet impossibly alluring end product, very much like the peak of survival horror videogames and their wonderful exploitation of the uncanny valley.

Hugo, who funnily enough does not play videogames, is happy to acknowledge this influence in his visual style, and opens the door to more Cindy material, whether animated or not. We even speculate on the idea of having a Cindy show without Cindy herself. “We actually did this for a bit,” Hugo recalls. “We had a show booked in Russia and Blue couldn’t get her passport sorted in time, so I asked her to record herself doing the songs and then we projected it onto a screen. And it worked, the audience seemed to be really getting into it.” Of course, this has happened in the past with bands like Kraftwerk or Gorillaz, or with the infamous dead celebrity hologram performances that big festivals seem keen on implementing.

It’s a particularly alluring approach, even more so that now that live band shows seem far from happening in the near future. Cindy is, after all, about the intermingling of the weird and the real, and about our ways of reacting, confronting, and, ultimately, embracing the paradox. Now that our experiencing of the world has been seismically altered, Cindy might unintentionally become one of the zeitgeist-capturing projects we will look fondly on in the future.

“Justin (Part III),” the latest video instalment of Dutch producer Kai Hugo‘s Cindy saga, hit the internet a few days ago. The video portrays fictional figure Cindy Savalas— a name Hugo borrowed from an X-Files episode for his imaginary muse. Cindy has been the centrepiece of many of Hugo‘s projects since the release of christening track “Cindy Savalas” on his 2015 album Palmbomen II LP. I’m Cindy, the full-length album which is out on Antwerp-based label World Of Paint, promises to answer the question that has been bothering fans for years: Who exactly is Cindy Savalas?

The video for “Justin (Part III)” features actress Blue LoLãn, whom Hugo has consistently tapped to portray Cindy (as seen in the previous offerings “2y & 6m” and “Never Let Me Go”). The piece features the shots of the actress dancing against the sunset as yellow subtitles skate on screen. The cinematography uses dated editing effects to infuse a vintage feel, with multiple clips showing leafy greenery overlaying on top of each other for a busy, hodgepodge effect. The piece feels more like a film project than a simple music video, with portions that are even reminiscent of the work of performance artist, filmmaker, and musician Miranda July, who often uses spoken word and nostalgia-ridden prose in her art. All in all, the video for “Justin (Part III)” is representative of the Cindy Savalas project as a whole– bewildering, nonsensical, and absolutely spectacular.

The track itself also straddles the line between music and art. Following a trend from previous releases, Hugo tells Cindy‘s stories through LoLãn‘s buttery voice. The song starts with an ominously performed spoken word section, with LoLãn as Cindy orating, “I finally understand who he is. / He was just made inside my head. / I created him and I was in love with him. / Who am I?”. The track then melds into a disco-inspired bop which relies heavily on lyrical repetition, another staple of Cindy tracks. A high pitched voice repeats catchy phrases, including, “I will not let you down.” This assuring mantra then shifts into another repeated statement: “You are not the only one.” With its ’80s tropes and layered vocals, “Justin (Part III)” easily gains a place next to groups like the Cocteau Twins or Cults. However, simple comparisons fail to encapsulate the nature of the track. With the conceptual, world-building aspects of I’m Cindy, Hugo and his collaborator LoLãn enter a league of their own.

The careful storytelling in “Justin (Part III)” is the glue that holds this complicated piece together. The lyrical subject of the track– presumably Justin himself– is a source of mystery to listeners and Cindy herself, as she muses, “Did I create him? / Are we real?”. The track ends with an abrupt admission, “Justin doesn’t call me. / He doesn’t hold my hand. / He doesn’t text me. / Because I made him up.” That’s right– this is a song sung from the point of view of a fictional character who is obsessed with a person they’ve imagined themself. If you’re feeling confused at this point, that is likely Hugo‘s goal. “Justin (Part III)” challenges listeners to consider larger themes about the role of reality in today’s society. In a world filled with virtual smokes and mirrors, how do we differentiate real from fake? Worse still, what happens when the fake seems more authentic than the real? The heady themes that permeate Cindy releases further differentiate Hugo from his peers, perhaps appointing him as a trailblazer into the complicated future of conceptual music. Explore this new future with the video for “Justin (Part III)” below.

We’re only 6 months into 2020 and it actually feels that the world as we know it is about to collapse. Who knows what’s coming next? For better or worse, a lot of things are simultaneously happening around us and music has been an essential way to find hope and kill time. In 2020, artists need us more than ever and, in case you did not figure it out while being stuck at home, we also need them. Can you really imagine a lockdown without music? We can’t. As we’re now at the mid-way point of this exceptionally horrible year, it’s time to share with you, like every year, the 30 tracks that have helped us to hold on so far. If you need more to cheer you up, you can also explore our other favourite tracks of 2020 via our Spotify and Apple Music playlists below.

070 Shake – “Guilty Conscience”
Agar Agar – “Nap”
Annie – “American Cars”
Boyish – “AnDroGay”
Caribou – “Never Come Back”
Charli XCX – “forever”
Christine and the Queens – “People, I’ve been sad”
Cindy – “Never Let Me Go”
Cindy Lee – “I Want You To Suffer”
Couch Prints – “Of Drawing”
Discovery Zone – “Blissful Morning Dream Interpretation Melody”
Dua Lipa – “Physical”
Fiona Apple – “Shameika”
Geranium – “Separate Life”
Kate NV – “Sayonara”
Magdalena Bay – “Airplane”
Moses Sumney – “Virile”
MOTHERMARY – “Catch Fire”
Perfume Genius – “On The Floor”
Phoebe Bridgers – “Garden Song”
Planet 1999 – “Party”
SAULT – “Wildfires”
Soccer Mommy – “circle the drain”
TOPS – “Direct Sunlight”
Waxahatchee – “Can’t Do Much”
Yaeji – “When I Grow Up”
Young Ejecta – “Crayon Cactus”
Yves Tumor – “Gospel For A New Century”
Zelma Stone – “Dreamland”
Zoee – “Rio’s”

Who exactly is Cindy Savalas? For the past few months, there’s been a consistent buzz around this enigmatic figure. But Cindy’s story goes all the way back to 2015 when she appeared on Kai Hugo’s self-titled album as Palmbomen II. Hugo became entranced with Savalas, and devoted his time to fully fleshing out this character. She needed a backstory, and he gave her one with his 2018’s album Memories of Cindy. But that wasn’t enough. She also needed her own voice, needed to be heard simply as Cindy, and to tell her own story.

And that’s where we arrive at I’m Cindy, the lost album by Cindy Savalas, now scheduled for release next week on World of Paint. First shared in May, lead single “2y & 6m” was our first stepping stone to her new story. It’s a hypnotic electropop track, one that takes a leaf out of Prince’s book just to rewrite it through an Italo lens. Equally important as the music, if not more, is the other-worldly valley aesthetics the whole project is draped in. This is particularly true of “2y & 6m” and its music video, which looks like a lost, horror-inspìred videogame for the Playstation 2.

The same thing rings true for the latest single “Never Let Me Go”, a disco-influenced song for the uncanniest club on Earth. Most of the song is simply Cindy singing its title over and over, less as a plead and more as a cult mantra. Its video doubles down on the whole cult theory, every single image oozing out a suspiciously immaculate white. It’s not too far-fetched to think that the song takes its title from Kazuo Ishiguro’s equally culty novel “Never Let Me Go”. Will that be a clue to help us unearth Cindy’s mystery? We´ll find out next week with I’m Cindy.