Cece Natalie has been on a serious run since The FADER caught up with the producer-popstar backstage at Elsewhere last fall. Following an 8-song EP of loosies at the end of 2025, she went on tour this spring with PinkPantheress and dropped a bomb new single, “DOMINO.” Despite mixed reactions to her opening slot for Pink, it is clear that Cece has been dialing in the dark aesthetic of her throbbing alt-pop, which sits somewhere between Amethyst-era Tinashe and “Summer Bummer” Lana Del Rey.
Her latest single “Flood Whole Towns” sketches an impressionist portrait of a thorny relationship, the sort that your friends might call codependent at best and toxic at worst. “I defend you with my life, they just wanna protect me / the bad aftertaste in all their mouths, I L-O-V-E-E.” Cece’s music is preoccupied with this sort of bittersweetness, the ways that affection and attraction can bring out the worst in ourselves and our lovers, and how we might find that pain more pleasurable than problematic.
When Cece Natalie says she doesn’t want to be a typical Y2K pop princess, she means it. Speaking exclusively about recording “Flood Whole Towns” with co-producer Aaron Shadrow, Cece noted, “Different little elements sound like they’re from different time periods, to me. And I like that the outro vocals get progressively more off-key the more I say ‘I blame you.’”
“There isn’t a lot of Autotune on this song because it would sound too pretty and too modern,” Cece explains. “I like that some lines are straightforward and others feel kinda medieval. I don’t really know how I came up with ‘the cross that I bear is the clutter inside,’ but it’s a top 10 favorite lyric in any song of mine. I write and record simultaneously, but I was pulling from journal entries where I give myself permission to be as irrational as I want to be.”
A Cinematic Vision of Fantasy and Death
For the music video, Cece helped co-creative direct the treatment, aiming to incorporate elements of fantasy, adventure, and death. “It was really cool in a way, also, to build a story where I die at the end. I didn’t want to make myself the hero of my story this time. There is no hero.”
Director Hannah De Vries, who previously helmed the video for “Exitin,” praised the collaboration: “I’m obsessed with the Cece Natalie character and myth. Mia has a rawness and unapologetic way of acting, performing, and moving that is her superpower and her charm.” De Vries added that the visual inspiration drew from Brothers Grimm fables and Nosferatu, creating a unique, dark aesthetic that complements the song’s haunting production.
The behind-the-scenes photos, captured by Max Wright and Baylee Bennett, highlight the meticulous effort put into the shoot, from sourcing antique colonial spindles to finding the perfect, eerie house to serve as the video’s backdrop. As Cece puts it, the final result is “so divorce movie,” perfectly capturing the cinematic, melancholic energy she intended to convey.
