Boombox Blitz: Brooke Forman maps out relationship’s rise & fall with ‘Uncharted’

Welcome to Boombox Blitz, an artist spotlight series showcasing overlooked singers, songwriters and musicians who are quietly taking over the world.

Love can be as ephemerally devastating as the seasons. It’s born of a butterfly’s seducing beauty, rippling our heartstrings with each wing flutter, and blossoms from within an indisputable human connection, which strikes us on the most basic level, into a vast work of art. When the time comes, however, that adoration fades like a well-worn pair of jeans, subsequently crushing that part of ourselves. Like clockwork, the process begins again. Brooke Forman tears at those boundaries ferociously with her panoramic-focused new single “Uncharted,” an airy and tribal-built ballad centered on looking back, picking up the pieces and moving onward.

Written by Forman and Grammy-winning songwriter and producer Benny Reiner, who played percussion in Lin-Manuel Miranda’s blockbuster Broadway musical Hamilton, the song spins and unravels, progressing from the naive early stages of a relationship through the slow plummet into blackened heartbreak. The visual, out today, displays Forman’s brave modern dance moves, and is directed by Thor Wixom, who also appears in the video as her daring double and has previously helmed cinematography and steadicam operation for such mainstream staples as Justin Bieber, The Chainsmokers and Kendrick Lamar. The two hearts push and pull apart across the desert floor, the sun jabbing down upon their skin. It’s a simple but riveting sequence, tightening the song’s edges even more.

“I wanted to try something that pushed me out of my comfort zone to make me feel vulnerable because that is the raw state of emotion that is happening in the song,” Forman says of the clip, which you can watch in full glory below. While she’s not exactly a professional dancer in specific terms, she does allow her gliding movements to exude the song’s strident, evocative tone quite effectively. She continues, “For me, that was dance, something that I have never done before, but wanted to travel to a place creatively that was uncharted territory just like the lyrics of the song. I was a bit nervous to attempt something so unfamiliar, but for me, the most important thing was not about being the best dancer, but to tell the truth of the story the song represents through movement alongside of an extremely beautiful contemporary dancer.”

While “Uncharted” flexes sturdy production choices, etched beneath the intimate-hued lyrics, the emotional fumes are forceful. “I wrote this record when I was at that extreme point of vulnerability when in love. I was too afraid to say those words out loud to him so my way of communicating it was by writing this song,” she says. Notably, the lyrics “to be loyal, yet to be free” linger on the brain far after the song’s end, and that was certainly the intention. “[Those] lyrics…pretty much sum me up as a person. I love to love; I am extremely loyal like a lion, but in that, I need someone who trusts and understands my nomadic need to roam free.”

“Uncharted” is out now via Spotify.

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