British queer synth-pop artist Minute Taker releases Losing Self-Control today, a new single created in collaboration with Berlin-based darkwave producer Curses. The track arrives accompanied by a music video that expands the narrative world surrounding his upcoming album, The Oblivion, which is set to be released at the end of next month. As both a musical and visual chapter, the release offers another glimpse into the themes and atmosphere shaping the record.
Produced by Curses and co-written by the two artists, Losing Self-Control blends Minute Taker’s cinematic synth-pop instincts with darker electronic textures. The track leans into an early eighties sensibility, where analogue synth lines and restrained drum patterns move alongside ambient guitars. “It feels like the soundtrack to a climactic montage scene,” Ben McGarvey says. “There’s uplift in it, but also an underlying tension. That sense that something beautiful could also undo you.”
At its core, the song explores what happens when emotional control begins to fracture under the weight of desire. McGarvey frames it as a moment where carefully constructed stability suddenly becomes uncertain. “Losing Self-Control is about living a very regulated life after a past filled with extreme highs and lows,” he explains. “Then someone comes along who challenges that even keel you’ve carefully created, and you open yourself up to the chaos of feeling everything again.”
The music video that comes along with the track continues the visual narrative introduced in Surrender to the Night, forming the second chapter of Nocturnal Monologues, a trilogy of music videos connected to the forthcoming album. The film moves between stark monochrome daytime scenes and vivid colour at night. During the day, the protagonist navigates an Orwellian workplace ruled by an authoritarian boss. As night falls, colour seeps back into the frame as a secret connection begins to blur the rigid order of his life.
With The Oblivion, Minute Taker continues the path that began with 2022’s Wolf Hours, a fan-funded audiovisual project that marked a turning point in his career. After years of balancing music with day jobs and watching traditional record deals fall apart, Ben McGarvey began building a direct relationship with his audience, eventually launching his own subscription platform and embracing a fully independent way of releasing music. That approach now underpins the new album and the community that has grown around his work.
