Before the first notes even settle, the video for “Fever Dream” by Jen Awad and Will Bates opens a doorway into the heart of the track. It captures that moment when everything shifts and the mind struggles to adjust to a new emotional landscape. Every gesture, look, and movement magnifies the sense that something is on the verge of emerging, as if the images were breathing in sync with the music.

It turns the song’s emotional core into a visual piece that drifts between the dreamlike and the theatrical, echoing Shirley Bassey’s Bond-era grandeur and the gritty dark-wave pulse reminiscent of Nine Inch Nails, references embedded in the track’s spirit. Everything bursts open when the curtain rises, pulling us into an intimate performance where vulnerability stands fully exposed.

Jen appears alongside two performers whose presence feels both strong and elegant. There is no strict choreography; the narrative relies on gestures that convey emotional tension and depth. Soft lighting and a subtle, hazy veil give the scene a retro texture that reinforces the sense of stepping into a memory that still resonates.

The video’s intention mirrors the song’s origins, conceived within a 900-year-old orphanage transformed into a creative sanctuary, its walls adorned with Crusade-era paintings, an atmosphere steeped in history and ritual that permeates the music. That feeling of entering something larger than the artist flows into the visual language. The stage becomes a small ritual where the performers embody confusion, awakening, and emotional rupture.

Throughout the song, Jen Awad delivers a performance that feels drawn from a deep, uncovered place within her, embodying the passage between chaos and revelation that shapes the track’s emotional arc. Layered sonics build an atmosphere of mystery and desire, a space where vulnerability becomes both inevitable and powerful.

The creative partnership between Jen Awad and Will Bates amplifies the track’s impact. She brings emotional force, and he builds a perfect production that makes everything fall into place, supported by his extensive background in film and television, including collaborations with Mike Cahill, Craig Gillespie, and Alex Gibney, as well as scores for series like Mayfair Witches, Class of ’09, and The Magicians, which infuse the track with an immediate cinematic sensibility.

The context in which the song was born also seeps into its essence. Jen wrote while Los Angeles faced fires, street-level fear, and ICE raids that kept the city on constant alert. That external turmoil collided with the strange calm of Ibiza, where she and Will Bates worked inside the old orphanage. The tension between these two worlds fuels “Fever Dream,” a track that feels like the sonic imprint of a forced awakening amid chaos. Its raw sincerity finds its most accurate reflection in the video.

Follow Jen Awad and Will Bates on Instagram.

Photographed by Ivan Darko.

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