Salvador
For Sega Bodega, acclaim for spearheading the sound of London-based electronic label and collective NUXXE has helped to fuel his evolution. On 2018’s EP *self\*care*, he laid his own vocals onto jet-black pop-R&B, setting the way for *Salvador*, a full debut album that cuts close to the heart of the Glaswegian. “It\'s basically an autobiography,” Salvador Navarette tells Apple Music. Best captured in the whirring tension of lead single “Salv Goes to Hollywood” or the hymnal refrains that close out “Raising Hell,” *Salvador* breaks structure on a whim, offering instead a glitchy ride through human emotion. Here, he offers a track-by-track tour. **2 Strong** “Out of all the songs, it was the most like, ‘Okay, listen to this album.’ I think starting with just a dry vocal felt really strong, since it\'s like I\'m trying to be like, \'Me, me, me!\'” **Masochism** “That\'s an apology to my mum, and a love letter to alcohol. It\'s kind of a conversation with my mum while I simultaneously stick up for how much I love fucking drinks. Or how much I *loved* drinks—past tense, I guess.” **Raising Hell** “The fucking DM’s I get, ugh—I didn\'t think I could write a whole song about it, but it turns out I can write a *whole* song about it! Just getting harassed for dick pics by fucking strangers. Like...why would I do that?” **U Got the Fever** “It\'s a breakup song. I mean, it\'s about a relationship I had, but it\'s also about hearing of other people\'s relationships and the common theme of severe paranoia, just making someone go fucking crazy. So like, in a lot of ways, the fever is paranoia. I had the line and I was like, \'That feels like a good analogy to paranoia.’” **Heaven Knows** “This is just a completely fictional thing about the person listening to the song killing me. The end at the very last bit of the track, it’s supposed to be the person who’s killed me talking to themselves. Talking to the voice in their head. Fun trick: If you listen to the end of it in mono, the lyrics change. I figured out how to completely make something disappear when you put it on mono. I had this idea of having lyrics that in stereo were one thing and then in mono had a completely different meaning. Been wanting to do that for a very long time.” **Salv Goes to Hollywood** “I\'ve been playing this song for about two years now, and even when people didn\'t know it they still felt it. It\'s a really old song, from like 2016. It was the first time I ever vocaled a song, so it felt like a really nice way to start on the record. Kinda like, all the ways I\'ve tried to do this whole vocal thing. Yeah, back then I knew it would be the single, but the video was all Jade \[Jackman\], the director. That was all her thing and I was happy to let her go crazy with it. If you\'ve seen the video, there\'s these glasses in it. I brought them.” **Knox (Interlude)** “I feel like there\'s gonna be a bunch of people who listen to this who might just maybe want instrumental club stuff, which I\'ve done for quite a long time, and this was sort of like, ‘Here\'s that.’ But you\'re not getting a lot of it! I tried to make a full song out of it, but that bit, the 30 seconds that are in it, just *felt* like enough. I couldn\'t make anything go past that without it getting boring. It took 10 minutes.” **Smell of the Rubber** “Do you ever date someone and they\'re giving off red flags everywhere, but you\'re just ignoring every single one of them? It\'s about that. And then at the end it\'s about…I\'m sure you know.” **U Suck** “It was originally stemming from an argument I was having with someone, and then I got over it and I really liked the song and I didn\'t want the song to be this thing that reminded me of it, every time. So I was like, I can switch this up. Then it became about the ways that you can say \'fuck you\' but actually mean so many different things. At the end, that vocal, it\'s a girl called Mimi Wade and she sings back a different way that you can say \'fuck you.\' So I liked that way of having the same line but several different ways of interpreting it all in one song. Just kind of basic shit.” **Calvin** “This is about my best friend who killed himself a couple of years ago. The first part of the song is me talking to him now. The first verse is me talking to him. And then the middle bit is him talking back to me. Again, listen to that on mono. I wanted to symbolize the fact that the voice wasn\'t even there.” **Kuvasz in Snow** “‘We hide in plain sight like Kuvasz in snow.’ That lyric is about being emotionally detached. There\'s nothing much to that, it\'s just I really liked the song and then it feels like an ending.”
The debut album Salvador, out now on NUXXE. Includes the singles U Suck, Salv Goes To Hollywood and Raising Hell.
On his solo album, the London producer cloaks his self-doubt in deceptively danceable electronic beats that fuse elements of rap, pop, and UK bass in unexpected ways.
Sega Bodega is the stage name of London's Salvador Navarrete, and his debut album is fittingly titled Salvador.