To cap off a monumental 2024, Hikaru Utada unveiled the music video for their newest track, ‘Electricity.’

The immersive visual was helmed by YOSHIROTTEN, the renowned Japanese artist who also oversaw the art direction for Utada’s 25th anniversary greatest hits compendium, SCIENCE FICTION, as well as the visuals for the historical tour of the same name. Filmed at KDDI Parabola Museum in Shimonoseki, Japan, the ‘Electricity’ video draws viewers into the expansive and transportive universe of SCIENCE FICTION.

About their experience filming the video, Utada said on X, "Thank you to the KDDI Yamaguchi Commnication Satellite Center for allowing us to shoot by their 30m plus parabolic antennas and even in their mega off-limits server room! I can’t believe we were able to achieve these visuals without using CG or building sets. It was such a special experience, even more so being the area where my ancestors lived and now rest." (宇多田家の故郷でもあり巨大隕石の降ってくるパワースポットでもある土地で、いつもは宇宙の研究に使われている30M以上のデカかわいいパラボラさんたちとの共演、そして非公開のサーバー室での撮影を許可していただいたおかげで、合成もセットもなしでこんなにかっこいい映像作品が作れました)

‘Electricity’ was previously included as the sole new work in SCIENCE FICTION. The track saw Utada collaborating anew with British composer and producer Sam Shepherd a.k.a. Floating Points, after their spectacular stint in BADモード: the eponymous track, ｢気分じゃないの」(Not In The Mood), and ‘Somewhere Near Marseilles.’ It features live instrumentation: percussion from artist-producer Kuniyuki Takahashi and MELRAW on the saxophone/flute.

The track was also featured as an encore performance in their SCIENCE FICTION Tour 2024, which wrapped up in September.

Utada said in an exclusive interview with Bandwagon that the track’s genesis came shortly after Paris Fashion Week in 2023, where the artist was attending Sacai’s 2024 Spring/Summer presentation.

“Some of my friends from Tokyo that I hadn't really been out with before, we went out a lot and had fun,” they recounted the experience. “I met new people and there were new experiences. I just wanted to capture this energy of people's connections.”

“It just gives me a lot of physical joy – writing the song, also just singing it, and listening to it. It gives me this physical reaction,” they added.

Utada celebrated their anniversary on 9 December, when exactly 26 years ago in 1998, they had debuted with Automatic/time will tell. They celebrated the milestone with a brand-new artist portrait.

Watch the ‘Electricity’ video below: