Our final video premiere for 2022 and it’s a damn fine one to go out on. The glistening, synth slow-burn of Ben deHoedt‘s new single ‘Divided Souls‘.

Seemingly with one foot in the 80s and one in the future, De Hoedt pays tribute to the iconic TV series Miami Vice, transforming it into a gritty, stylised noir that, as deHoedt explains, is “a re-imagining of the relationship between Crockett and Tubbs which reflects the nihilistic duality of the lyric.”

‘Divided Souls’ follows the first single ‘This Call May Be Recorded‘, from the forthcoming album City Lights Shimmer, DeHoedt’s second solo album, that draws inspiration from classic undercover police dramas from Miami Vice to Deep Cover, exploring themes of dissonance, duality and paranoia. It’s a soundtrack to an imagined film, heavy on atmosphere and texture:  Songs which serve as set-pieces, vocals as incantations.

The song is gloriously spacious, hi-res and widescreen with 80s synths and rock guitars circling each other in a slow-motion avant pop-rock embrace. In a parallel universe it’s like Green Gartside (Scritti Politti), David Sylvian and Prince cruising Sunset Boulevard late at night in a red Porsche 944 convertible.

I remember being initially banned from watching the show when it first aired in NZ back in 1984, on the back of the media claims that it was excessively violent. It was the perfect show for the pop culture of the times and the decadence and seedy glitz of the decade. DeHoedt’s focus on the Crockett and Tubbs relationship is a masterstroke, they were the core of the show and he injects a smouldering sexual tension into what was, on the surface, an overtly machismo series.