“I actually live next to Damon Albarn’s studio,” Artemas reveals, sounding a little in awe. “I can see inside the studio… In summertime, he’ll open the window and you can fucking hear it all.”
The creative hub in question can be found under the Westway in west London, where Artemas Diamandis is nipping at the heels of the Blur frontman and Gorillaz innovator. The 24-year-old producer, singer and songwriter has only been releasing music for a few years, but his ascent has been rocket-fuelled by a knack for a fiendish melody that’s making him a very modern, TikTok-assisted success story. More than 45million monthly listeners on Spotify and half a million followers on TikTok can’t be wrong – especially at this early stage in his journey.
In fusing “avant-garde dark R&B pioneers like Miguel, Frank Ocean and The Weeknd” – as he puts it – with the serrated sonics of ’90s grunge, the artist has hit upon an irresistible formula. His contribution to ‘Bose x NME: C24’ sees him upend expectations and point to an ever-evolving future. ‘So Stunning’ is expansive where his previous singles were lithe and dancefloor-focused; powered by crunching guitars and thunderous percussion, which are offset by his vulnerable falsetto, the track showcases a more mature style for the Gen-Z musician.
“It’s introducing a part of my sound that I haven’t put out into the world,” he tells NME, “but [which] I have been working on for a while: the big kind of glamorous synths. I’ve got a few songs that are like that, with the alt-rock outro where it hits you in the face out of nowhere.”
Artemas worked on the song with his co-producer and songwriting collaborator Toby Daintree, with whom he crafted previous smash hits ‘If U Think I’m Pretty’ (more than 200million Spotify streams) and ‘I Like The Way You Kiss Me’. The latter, astonishingly, racked up more than 2.5billion TikTok views within a month of its release. It also recently soared to Number One on Spotify’s Daily Top Songs Global chart in mid-April (before, inevitably, being dethroned by Taylor Swift, which isn’t bad company to keep). “I always had wet dreams about seeing myself at the top of that,” he laughs.
As a teenager in Oxfordshire, the English-Cypriot star would compulsively check the chart during a phase in which he obsessed over mastermind pop producers Max Martin and Benny Blanco. “For ages,” he remembers, “I would pick apart songs and learn that way. I don’t think I ever made anything that great at the time but it’s just kind of part of my fibre as a songwriter now.”
That super-sized pop sensibility runs though ‘Pretty’, Artemas’ assured debut mixtape. The record exudes a darkness that stems from the creative epiphany he experienced upon seeing the Kurt Cobain documentary Montage Of Heck, aged 16: “I remember just being a little shit at the time and doing whatever I possibly could to be considered cool at school… I was identity less, and then that documentary hit and I was just instantly like: ‘That’s gonna be my thing.’”
Artemas, who enthuses about Kurt’s “pop ear”, paid tribute to his ’90s forebears when he reimagined ‘If U Think I’m Pretty’ as a straight-up grunge track and uploaded the result to YouTube late last year. ‘Prettygrunge.wav’ rolls in like a tidal wave and speaks to the fact that he’d like to “do a grunge project at some point”.
What’s so impressive about his work, though, is the way in which he brings these influences up to date, building tracks like a hip-hop producer: “I usually will start with a beat or just a vibe and try jibberish over it.” The melodies come first, followed by often outlandish lyrics – take the line on ‘So Stunning’ that sees him shrug: “I think I like it better when you say nothing.” It’s a typical bit of provocation, but the sentiments aren’t necessarily to be taken at face value: “I’m exaggerating certain parts of myself and being melodramatic with it.”
Given this taste for musical roleplay, it’s fitting that he recently spent a few days working in Damon Albarn’s studio; he was amazed that Damon himself turned up one evening. Given his own hit rate, though, he could be talking about himself when he says: “I think he’s just obsessed with making songs, you know? I don’t think he ever stops, which is mad!”
It makes you wonder where Artemas’ journey might take him now. He laughs at the question: “I don’t know – because I didn’t know I was gonna have the biggest song in the world, so you don’t fucking know what’s going to happen next.”
Stay tuned to NME.com/C24 for the latest on the return of the iconic mixtape