When inquired about the ideal conditions for listening to their new collaborative record—You Said You’d Hold My Hand Through The Fire, out now on Hyperdub—the British rapper Iceboy Violet and the Spanish producer Nueen both gave a variation on the same thought: walking at night with headphones on.

No doubt, the record has a smeary, late-night atmosphere, one that pairs nicely with a long stroll through deserted streets. Nueen’s production—haunted and hyper-detailed, taking influence from ambient music and more street-level sounds—matches well with Iceboy’s lyrics, which function as an accounting of a relationship in its aftermath. It’s a strong, cohesive album, perfect for stumbling through foggy neon and wondering where it all went wrong. I sent over some questions to the artists; their responses are below.

What are the origins of this collaboration?

Iceboy Violet: Mutual respect I think, I loved Nueen’s Link EP on 3XL, it felt like we both shared this interest in hip hop and ambient and where it intersects, I just slid in the DMs all smooth and said, Hey. The rest is history. 

Nueen: We respect each other's work, that's why I think the making of this record has been so easy and smooth. I came across Iceboy's “Drown to Float” back in 2020, but it wasn't until last year that we started talking to each other online and sharing music.

The lyrical content of this record is super personal. Before you started working, did you have any conversations about subject matter, and did that inform the music?

Iceboy Violet: I think I always write super personal stuff, even if it doesn’t seem like it at first glance. It’s full of my neuroses and fears and feelings. I got broken up with about a month after we’d started sending bits back and forth, but then looking at the tracks I’d already written, it was like, I already knew, “SM FID” was one of them. I think I told Nueen once it happened, “Yeah, I’m sorry I’m not gonna be able to write about anything else for a while.”

Nueen: We just started sharing music and chatting online without any pretension, it wasn't until we had a strong selection of tunes that we decided to do something with them. We were just working on it without thinking about it too much.

I’m curious to know about your collaborative workflow.

Iceboy Violet: Nueen sent me the beats, lots of them, I think the folder at the end had like 100 beats in it. I’d just go through them, find something that worked for how I was feeling, stuff that suited lyrical concepts I had, I tried to pick the weirder stuff, tried to challenge myself as a writer and a vocalist. Then I’d send them back, with full or partial vocals, sometimes with lil production tweaks but the division was pretty clear. 

Nueen: I'm a very obsessive person, for better or worse, and at that time I was spending a lot of hours making music, I also discovered that I was very comfortable with the process, so I was sharing beats with Iceboy on a daily basis and together we would decide which ones were good enough to develop and which ones weren't. I think it was an exciting challenge for both of us, for me to create something new inspired by someone else, and for Iceboy to step out of their comfort zone and explore new paths.

What was the process like working with outside collaborators? I thought it was interesting that the first voice on the record is of a guest—Harriet Morley. Were there any conceptual ideas underpinning how you worked with outside voices?

Iceboy Violet: A big part of it was trying to finish as much music as possible, trying to keep up with the amount of beats I was being sent, to try and mine and fully empty the vein of feeling. I kept asking people to take part and like 9/10 of them had also recently broke up with someone, which felt like a little connection in the midst of it all. A sad kind of synchronicity. I think albums like this can be really self indulgent, self absorbed—”this is how you made me feel and I’m gonna complain about it for 35 minutes”—and I really wanted to avoid that in every way I could.

I think the features add different angles in a really nice way, help universalize it. I tried to not ask for anything more specific than it being about grief, I wanted people to take it where they wanted.  Harriet being such an incredible writer was something I only learned when we were talking about stuff, having a catch up, I sent her pieces of writing for the album and then she sent me stuff back and I was blown away. 

Nueen: I think we both wanted to share the album and the process with more people, to enrich it with other points of view. We had several ideas, but in the end we had Harriet, Dawuna, and Bennett who fit the vibe of the songs perfectly.

Nueen, what is your relationship with British music?

Nueen: I think it's always inspired me a lot and in different ways. At home, my parents listened to a lot of British music, from The Beatles to Pink Floyd and Black Sabbath. My mum is also passionate about British culture. Later, I started to explore and ended up listening to jungle, dubstep, grime, etc. It's amazing how the British can make such good music.

Iceboy Violet: Hahahaha, I think we live in a really miserable land and have learnt how to deal with that by making music, that’s my only explanation.

Iceboy, what is your relationship with ambient music?

Iceboy Violet: I probably listen to ambient and folk music more than anything else right now. I’ve made a fair share of my own, all of my projects have little bits of ambience. I find it really creatively fulfilling to make, it’s really instinctive and free, and the newer ambience, the ambience that is still very much body music, the sample-based ambience, the ambient remix projects are so exciting to me. I found .cutspace through your site and holy fuck that stuff is amazing, ambience, fragments of hip hop beats, autotune. It’s a bit of me, that, incredibly inspiring.

What are the ideal conditions for listening to this record in full?  

Iceboy Violet: My favorite time/place to really be with music is walking at night. The streets are quiet and the day is over and I’m going home and my mind can just sit with it. I think that’s the situation I want all my music to sound good in. This one feels like much more of a headphone one, something to listen on your own, to have your own relationship too based on your own experience of grief/heartbreak. I don’t know, people always surprise me with how/where they listen to my music, once it’s out it’s not just mine anymore, go wild.

Nueen: Probably with headphones and at night, going for a walk home. I think it's a pretty nocturnal album if that makes sense.