Not that “Summer” is Curtin’s first outing with an electric guitar—she plugged in on her debut solo EP, Fly Her and Keep Her—but the stylistic shift is remarkable. To craft the slow and steady rhythms in this song, she called in help from drummer Ian Chang (of Son Lux and Landlady) and bassist Spencer Zahn (of Empress Of), then threw tambourine and synthesized drum beats to the mix.

Curtin’s velvety croon is unmistakable, but she chose a different way to exercise that instrument on this song. “With singers on the radio constantly trying to sing higher and higher and out-belt each other, I decided to take it in the opposite direction,” the musician says. “It was kind of like, ‘Hey…how low can I sing?'”

Her foray into darker and deeper melodies seemed like an opportunity to explore a moody vibe in the song’s video: She teamed up with hip-hop fusion belly dancer Ebony Qualls (who also shows up in a new video from Nu:Tone) and shot the visual amid the shadows and bare walls of director Paul Abowd’s Columbia Heights apartment. The close-ups of both Curtin’s guitar and Qualls’ smooth movements recall the “Untitled” video from D’Angelo—whom Curtin also cites as an influence for this song.

“D’Angelo has a beautiful way of continuously building an arrangement without giving the listener that moment of complete satisfaction,” Curtin says. “That’s how I wanted to build this song.”

The only thing typically summery in the “Summer” music video are the sparklers that Qualls and Curtin hold. They’re shot in slow motion, suggesting a love that’s bright and exciting, but ultimately short-lived.

Sara Curtin performs Nov. 5 at “You, Me, Them, Everybody Live” at Wonderland Ballroom.

Now a new music video from Brit producer Dan Gresham—aka Nu:Tone—turns D.C. into a drum ‘n’ bass dreamland.

Shot by Robin Bell (who directed forthcoming doc Positive Force: More Than A Witness), the video for Nu:Tone’s “‘Til Dawn” stars local belly dancer Ebony Qualls as a camera-toting explorer shooting images of public art. (That’s Kelly Towles’ Espolón Tequila-commissioned mural on H Street NE in the video’s opening.) As her shutter clicks, we’re shown images from an older D.C., notably the neighborhood and nightclub district razed to make way for Nationals Park. That footage comes from filmmaker James Schneider (Punk the Capital), whose 2006 documentary The New Ball Game captured the neighborhood’s demolition.

The song’s vocal refrain is sourced from a classic house tune, New Deep Society’s “Warehouse (Days of Glory),” an ode to the iconic capital of Chicago house music. But paired with D.C. imagery, the sample helps tells a story about what used to be a vibrant D.C. club scene.

Bell says he took on the project because Gresham is an old friend; they met long ago in a youth summer program sponsored by their two churches: Gresham’s in England and Bell’s in Arlington, Virginia. Bell credits Gresham with getting him into electronic music back when drum ‘n’ bass was just beginning to take over U.K. electronic music.

“‘Til Dawn” is the first track on Nu:Tone’s fourth studio record, Future History, out next month on Hospital Records.