What is Palo Santo? It’s a fictional city where androids and humans live side-by-side, of course. But don’t worry if you didn’t know that: this is only just being revealed, bit-by-bit, to fans of British band Years & Years.
Or perhaps we should say bit-by-bot, since one of the initial planks in the campaign for the band’s upcoming second album is a Messenger bot launched by label Polydor Records UK.
Called the Palo Santo Entertainment Network Server (PSEN for short) it promises “a range of civic services for androids and the non-organic” – a mixture of cryptic clues and video clips, which signed up more than 5,000 subscribers in two days after its launch.
It sounds like Polydor is having fun with the campaign though: there are mysterious billboard posters with scannable Messenger codes; cryptic clues scattered throughout the band’s old video content across the various online platforms; a ‘How To Treat a Human’ instruction manual and more.
Meanwhile, the band’s Twitter account has also been taken over by the androids, interacting with fans based on their responses to the campaign. Yesterday, Years & Years also pushed out a graphic-novel through their Instagram story, set in the world of Palo Santo.
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