"Music has turned into nothing more than just a rush in the background while you are busy doing other things. I don't want to change that, but I try to make something that will catch your ear and communicate with you."
-Thomas Azier
Berlin-based Dutch electropop musician Thomas Azier has achieved success in Netherlands, France and Belgium with the release of his 2014 debut studio album Hylas, the result of 5 years of work since moving to Berlin when he was 19.
You can certainly hear the influences of dance and club music in the melodies, synths and percussive beats that create the atmospheric nature of tracks like 'Red Eyes' and 'Angelene', but its Azier's vocals that will probably grab most of your attention. They really come to the forefront in 'Red Eyes', which, like many other tracks in the album, soar with a haunting, searing dramaticism. Ryan Lathan of PopMatters provides a helpful characterisation of Azier's talent as a vocalist:
"Twenty-five-year-old Azier, whose voice often recalls everyone from Jon Anderson to Antony, revels in extremes both sonically and lyrically, like a manic depressive flitting between “hope and despair”. He paints multi-hued tales of disillusionment and optimism, while struggling with personal desires to satiate his appetite for both lust and companionship."
Azier himself has professed to be distanced from the post-modernism of the Berlin music scene, drawing from the city's darker side to create music with his signature "romantic, naïve touch". His lyrics dwell on many common young adult themes: urban alienation, disconnection, loneliness, desire, the need for intimacy, heartbreak. 'Red Eyes' is mainly about the inner emotional turmoil caused by unrequited/unreciprocated desire:
"She could never be closer
And ever closer then tales can tell
But I can't fail
She could never be closer
And who's the one who casts the spell
Oh I can't tell
Pieces falling in the games we play
And even castles couldn't get away
Red eyes
Red eyes"
I really the direction that Azier is going, with his energetic injection of dark romanticism into dynamic synthpop textures. As QuipMag's Ryan Wilson notes, this isn't really music to dance to, but music for active contemplation:
"Though Hylas has its roots in the clubs, it’s not dance music. It’s active stuff, but the vocals are too intense and the lyrics too evocative to lose your body in. It’s the kind of music you sit back and listen to. Music for staring out of windows to. With such a powerful voice and superb composition, Thomas Azier is setting a high standard for himself. Though vintage sounding, Hylas’s dynamic melodies make it an innovative and genuine work from an artist the world will be getting to know a lot more of in the years to come."
Azier's talents as a vocalist and composer are certainly evident; his artistic mission to 'catch your ear and communicate with you' has been successfully achieved. I'm just waiting to see if can also step-up his prowess as a lyricist. While sonically arresting and well-constructed, the lyrics on 'Red Eyes' and many of his other tracks don't quite live up to the dynamism of his vocals and instrumentals. I'm hoping that his next album will deliver the missing link, and allow his vision for electropop to take on a greater and wider resonance, and reach far beyond European shores.
