Returning to his roots with a sharpened sound and pen, “don’t pick up” is a calm, sexy self-produced lamentation on the fallout from a failed situationship. With a delightfully sunny blend of rhythm guitar and piano floating on a bed of experimental trap drums and 808s, mau calmly recounts the story of a past romantic connection gone awry.
Effortlessly switching from light and punchy singing to laid-back raps – the listener is guided through the highs, mids and lows of love had and lost, invited into the irrationally turbulent emotional landscape that unfolds when romance is recounted amidst the tug of war between pain and nostalgia.
“Much of how I’ve written about love in the past, while sincere, has felt restrictive. Partly due to my own people-please and being predominantly in healthy long term relationships in my teens and early twenties. As I got older I began to experience more ambiguous and fleeting connections or ‘situationships’ that, while generally respectful and kind, carried a drama and intensity that I would often rationalize and reflect on rather than simply allowing my feelings (however petty and underdeveloped) to be felt, expressed and pass. Making “don’t pick up” gave space to lean into the emotional irrationality of my single experiences in a way that honored my emotions while making light of it all. Conversely with the video, I wanted to examine the reality of processing pain with oneself rather than focusing on the over-romanticized nostalgia of something passed. I came up with the idea of having one of my best friends Musila, a filmmaker whom I met when I was single for the first time as an adult and was my guide through that time in many ways, accompany me as I go through a day of “self-care” practices. I found it would juxtapose nicely to have the visuals center on the self love practice required to healthily grow from pain – even as I’m still lamenting on the scars in the song. Oftentimes I think it’s a reality of healing that we don’t acknowledge; that our feelings no matter how ugly or irrational, will still surface and even consume us as we go about doing the work to move on ”, Mau says.
