Taurus is the new collaborative experiment between writer and director Sofia Mattioli and electronic artist Pional, creating music according to their bullish star sign. “I feel a musician’s biggest pressure is that you have to create a sound that identifies you, keeping it up over a career but at the same time, always reinventing yourself,” says the London-based Mattioli, who shares the project’s eponymous zodiac sign with her Spanish producer counterpart.

“There may be many different sounds over various moments of my life,” she continues, “working with people of differing star signs for example. Working with just a Sagittarius it could be a psychedelic record. Or working with a Gemini it could end up as classical music, who knows?” 

Animation and filmmaking collective Manson — who previously worked with Devo’s Mark Mothersbaugh and on Pional’s solo videos — created the video for “Just Us,” re-imagining Mattioli’s acquarello pink vision, inspired by Cy Twombly. “It tells a love story, giving the viewer the space to make it his or her own,” says Oriol Caba, co-founder of Manson, alongside Tomás Peña, Pau López Peñalver and Martí Carós. “The approach was to replace narratives with a sequence of handwritten words. We take pride in continual experimentation to create aesthetics that last.” 

“Pional’s knowledge and my naïve ideas from just starting out are a perfect match. Everything happens so fast when we are together,” says Mattioli, of the musician known for his progressive releases on the Hivern Discs and Young Turks labels. “For now we are slowly creating a Taurus sound. It’s an experiment.”