For Queens native Wolf (Julia Wolf), Athens Square was the perfect backdrop for a DIY music video. As she walks through scattered statues of greek philosophers, the greek mythology aficionado sings her message loud and clear, “I am no Orpheus, I’m not looking back twice.” As she struts the streets of Astoria, she calls out her ex for online pettiness and for assuming a tweet was about him.
“I posted something saying ‘I know we haven’t spoken in a while but I still check to see if you’re following me.’ I had an old crush in mind who I had lost touch with, so this was just a thought I had in passing,” recalls Wolf. “The issue began when my ex hit me up fifteen minutes later assuming it was about him! The audacity had me livid, not only because he thought I secretly still had feelings, but more so because my priorities in life are so far from that. I’m all career driven, only thing on my mind is the bullseye.”
Wolf’s sister assisted her on filming day as they wandered about Queens. There were only a few other people in the park that morning, but the duo received unsolicited instructions from an elderly man. Of course, he directed Wolf to climb the tallest statue. “And of course, me being me, I couldn’t say no and freaking climbed the statue,” says Wolf. “Like an IDIOT.”
The overlaid flickering skeletons and ripped-paper textures are courtesy of Schaef, who helped bring Wolf’s collage-stye visuals to life in a video setting. She’s a sucker for the dark and eerie, in both vibes and sounds. When she was in college, she was always the first to run into the mosh pit at pop punk concerts. Today, she’s a huge hip-hop fan and borrows a lot from the genre for her own sound, a welding of R&B, pop, and alternative.
This year has been monumental for Wolf, who has acquired a collaboration with Levi’s for “High Waist Jeans,” seen her lyrics tattooed on a fan's arm, and put out several new songs. But what can we expect from Wolf in 2021? Plenty confident anthems, an eventual album, and new designs for her clothing line Girls In Purgatory.