HD-4884 Releases Dark Music Video for 'Red Eye Tourniquet' With XLVR

Six Years in the Making

HD-4884 has released a dark, action-driven music video for "Red Eye Tourniquet," his new drum & bass collaboration with Josh Rubin's XLVR project. Out now via HD-4884's own label, Ctrl: Database Research, the track first began taking shape back in 2020. It sat unfinished for close to six years while he searched for a vocalist whose voice could hold its own against the song's heavier, more unhinged instrumentation, and that search ended with Rubin.

From Overload to Release

The track opens on a slow-burning intro that traces Rubin's feeling of being caught between real-world pressure and a nonstop feed of digital noise, his thoughts folding together into "the static over me." From there, a barrage of rising snares build the tension before the arrangement breaks wide open into an unrelenting sequence of distorted bass and frenetic drums.

The music video turns that same overwhelm into a physical metaphor, with Rubin fighting off an alien-like force that takes hold of his mind, body and spirit. He's teleported to a desolate wasteland of ruins where the battle plays out, until he finally cuts it away for good. The song and its video move through the same three stages: overload, exhaustion and the moment someone finally decides to cut loose. That same idea sits inside the title: "red eye" for the sleeplessness and doubt, "tourniquet" for the act of stopping the bleeding before it's too late.

Full Creative Control

HD-4884 wrote, shot, directed, colored and edited the video himself along with handling its CGI and VFX work. The virtuosic DJ, producer and visual artist kept a full schedule this summer, playing Rampage Open Air as part of a stage takeover by Noisia's VISION Recordings. Meanwhile, Rubin's XLVR landed on Bassrush Records for a REAPER collaboration, "BURN," after previous outings on Monstercat and Liquicity.

"Red Eye Tourniquet" is available now via Ctrl: Database Research.