Audrey Signs to Arista Records, Releases Captivating 'Time': Watch the Music Video

Korean-American smooth-toned R&B artist Audrey has signed with Arista Records, a division of Sony Music Entertainment, and on Friday (Aug. 9), she dropped her first single under the label, “Time.”

A captivating, groovy track that hypnotizes with its sultry strings and lilting beats, Audrey sings about how “Time” interacts with life, holding people tied back as if a physical force.

“The lyrics of the song are kind of about this holding place or limbo where all these souls who want to do something with their life but say, “I have time, I have time,” and then it ended up being too late,” Audrey tells Billboard. “I wanted to write about if all these souls are collected in a purgatory, almost, what would that look like and sound like. For the video I wanted to make a visual representation of that.”

The song was inspired in part by Audrey’s own life, with the singer saying the hook's lyrics -- “I just need time” -- wouldn’t leave her before she wrote the track, when she was adjusting to her new, less-structured lifestyle as an artist after taking a gap year off of college at NYU. “I think those words were just telling myself, 'It’s OK to let this breathe and just kind of take it day by day,' and eventually transition into what I was trying to do everyday, what I wanted to make into my career," she says. "It was just having faith that time would take me there if I just kept doing what felt right to me in that moment."

The music video for “Time” was directed by Emma Westenberg, who directed Janelle Monáe’s impactful video for “Pynk.” It features a hypnotizing, neon look at Los Angeles and the passing of time and the toll on people's lives.

Watch Audrey’s “Time” music video below.