Memory's Fuel

In our photoshoot, Magdalena Wosinska captured Michael near his home with his classic car collection. Boys by Girls is all about authentic storytelling, so we wanted to capture Michael surrounded by peaceful familiarity. Wild mustard flowed like waves underfoot, planes plunged through the cyan sky overhead, all while his red classic car held the day’s memories like a crimson suntan.

If cars could run on the memories they hold, they could drive across the world and back - fueled by freedom’s first taste, music escaping on the cool wind through a cracked window, the eyes you see looking back at you in the rearview mirror. Michael tells us about his first car and says, “I still think about it all the time because there's something so special about it. It was my first sense of freedom in listening to whatever music I wanted to listen to and having personal, private time.”

Michael’s newest songs, “Superhero” and “reminds me of you,” both feel deeply nostalgic, a racing image of past self and past love stretched like light across road and sky. The music video, starring Michael, Nezza, and Jordan Meek and directed by Michael, captures the lens of memory beautifully - one second we see a picture of the past so clearly it’s almost like we can hold it in our palms, but soon it slips through our fingers and becomes a reflection that is warped in ripples, blurred and drowning, sparkled in nostalgia’s shimmering light.

Michael’s debut EP, Superhero, is scheduled for release late this summer. In Issue 18, he tells us, “At the end of the day, my whole goal as an artist is to make things that make people feel seen.” We look forward to seeing ourselves in his sound waves.

Preview our feature with Michael Cimino for Issue 18, out now!