Premiere: VANDANA ‘This Hunt’ Explores the Dangerous Allure of Desire and Ego
VANDANA
VANDANA unveils her new single, ‘This Hunt‘, a mesmerizing piece where mysticism and technology intertwine to explore beauty, ambition, and the cost that comes with both.
Inspired by the ephemeral bloom of the Night Blooming Cereus, the artist transforms this glorious natural spectacle into a visceral meditation on desire and its inevitable decay. From its opening moments, ‘This Hunt’ draws the listener into a dense, magnetic atmosphere. The percussion throbs like a heart in trance, the synths breathe darkness, and the production unfolds like an emotional chase. The lyrics speak of pride, ego, and loss, an endless pursuit that ultimately devours its own hunter.
Born in India, shaped by her years in London, and now based in Brooklyn, VANDANA crafts a sound she calls ancient futurism, a fusion of the ancestral and the avant-garde, the sensual and the sinister. In ‘This Hunt’, those dualities reach a hypnotic balance, as her voice, moving between whispers and ritual breaths, entwines with industrial beats that conjure both danger and desire.
In lines like “This cruel hunt/You never ask for it/This ego’s creation/This hunt, this hunt/You can never have enough of it,” VANDANA reveals how desire turns into its own snare.
The Night Blooming Cereus, which opens only once before fading at dawn, becomes a symbol of our futile longing to preserve beauty.
“For me, she became a parable about desire and the restless human hunger for more—more power, more beauty, more control. We can’t simply witness something exquisite; we try to own it, stretch it, repeat it, commodify it. This is how we lose the earth, strip communities, and turn life into conquest. The truth is, we can’t keep hunting and expect the garden to survive.”
VANDANA
Critically acclaimed and compared to FKA Twigs, Sevdaliza, and Björk, VANDANA is emerging as one of the defining voices of contemporary art-pop, a sonic ritual where vulnerability and power merge into a single body.
‘This Hunt’ marks the dawn of a new era for the artist, who is now working on her forthcoming studio album with collaborators including Marius de Vries (Björk, PJ Harvey), Cian Riordan (St. Vincent), Tal Wilkenfeld (Herbie Hancock, Mick Jagger), and Joey Waronker (Atoms for Peace).