Umru

Producer and DJ Umru drops in to tell us about Fortnite on Nintendo Switch, Ed Sheeran Sir Spyro Remix, Cold Brew, and more.

November 18, 2021

By clicking "SUBSCRIBE" you agree to our Terms and Privacy conditions.

—

Umru is a Brooklyn-based Estonian-American music producer signed to the PC Music label and a founding member of the graphic design firm Parent Company ©. You may know him from tracks such as Charli XCX’s “I Got It” and “Click”, Rebecca Black & Dorian Electra’s “Edgelord”, and Fraxiom’s 2020 album “Feeling Cool And Normal“. He just released a song called “check1” along with Tommy Cash and 645AR last month and is working on new music with Hannah Diamond, ericdoa, Rebecca Black, and Charli XCX. You can catch him live in Glasgow December 3rd and London December 10th. Umru has great taste and lucky for us, he’s here to tell us what he’s been into.

🎵

Ed Sheeran — Take Me Back To London (Sir Spyro Remix) [feat. Stormzy, Jaykae & Aitch]

This is one of my favorite songs/music videos of all time, it’s something I pull up and show just about every new person I meet. The original song with just Stormzy is fine, but only the remix by legendary grime producer Sir Spyro has the music video, and literally every second of it blows my mind. Why are Ed Sheeran and Stormzy driving a range rover through the English farmland in matching tracksuits? Why is Ed Sheeran rapping about “grossing half a billi on the divide tour” right after Stormzy’s talking about letting his 12 gauge rip? Why does Aitch’s verse in the video take place in a poorly lit cafe with Ed taking massive bites of his meal with a fork while the rest of the video is much more glamorous? Why is the hook so fucking good?? Give me a packet of crisps and a pint!! Please check this song out lol

📺

Lilyhammer

So everyone loves the Sopranos, but I feel like nobody’s ever heard of this Norwegian TV show (bought by Netflix) starring Steven Van Zandt from the Sopranos (and Bruce Springsteen’s band). This might only specifically appeal to me because I’m an Estonian American but it’s a crazy good show about a pseudo-Sopranos NYC mobster who goes into witness protection in Lillehammer, Norway. It’s such a good combo of worlds, definitely worth a watch.

🧊

cold brew

It’s simply the best kind of coffee. I’ve been a ride or die “never touch the hot” cold brew advocate for years now. For the unaware, it is not iced coffee. It’s brewed cold overnight and the result is less bitter and more caffeinated than a hot brew. I’m currently in London where nobody except starbucks seems to have it and i’m going through withdrawal symptoms

🎶

dltzk - Frailty

This brand new album’s been on repeat since it came out on Friday. dltzk is a 17 year old prodigy, one of the rising stars of the “”””hyperpop””””-associated scene who I feel lucky enough to have been able to hear the rapid development of in real time.. at this point I’ve accepted that this next generation of online musicians are already light years ahead of me but this album is definitely special. It’s euphoric, it’s punk, it’s playful, and its full of the types of production gimmicks I’d usually find distracting but here they’re executed so intentionally and tastefully, a lot of the songs feel like they include remixes of themselves.

⛏

fortnite on nintendo switch

When I returned home from a trip this summer I found my apartment full of people playing Fortnite—my roommate Elena Fortune had started playing on the Switch and started convincing everyone around us to play, myself included. This might seem like an insane recommendation because everyone knows what Fortnite is but it’s literally a good game, and on the Switch nobody’s quite as good as on PC so you can just start playing and feel like it’s balanced and have a chance of winning. When I did some shows with Fraxiom last month we spent more time playing Fortnite than we did doing music industry shit in LA and it felt great. It has glaive on the radio, it has Timothee Chalamet, it has the Joker, it has Balenciaga, it has Rick and Morty, it has Ariana Grande and she gives you quests...

🤡

joker vs pennywise on subway

Very few 30 second videos give me such certainty that I’ll always find them funny. I could watch this 100 times in a row and not get tired of it, and I definitely have. I don’t know the backstory but I’d like to think these two frenchmen in clown makeup who don’t even look much like the Joker or Pennywise didn’t know each other and just started going off in perfect harmony. Favorite moment: when one of them goes “oh my god” while doing this little dance with his hands.. so good. hah! jokere

PERFECTLY IMPERFECT IS A CULT FAVORITE NEWSLETTER AND AN APP FOR YOUR RECOMMENDATIONS

We've interviewed guests like Lorde, Olivia Rodrigo, Francis Ford Coppola, Charli XCX, Ayo Edebiri, Michael Imperioli, Emma Chamberlain, Clairo, Ice Spice, Molly Ringwald, Weyes Blood, Jeremy O. Harris, Conner O'Malley, Rayne Fisher Quann, Julian Casablancas, Alexa Chung, Mac Demarco, Moses Sumney, Omar Apollo, Suki Waterhouse, Narwuar, The Dare, and hundreds more in the Perfectly Imperfect Archive.

The history of PI is well-documented by The New York Times, NYMag, Vanity Fair, Interview Mag, Flaunt, Office, The Verge, and NPR.

Umru

RELATED

Perfectly Imperfect