Started by two friends to “escape from social cacophony”, Azil is an enigmatic musical project from Zagreb, Croatia. The band serves up an atmospheric and crepuscular guitar-laden Post-punk sound strewn with soft chiming Psychedelic hues, in their debut 2-song single, simply titled “1”, accompanied by a video for the second track, “I kad spava / And when she sleeps.”
The flip side is a colorful, and immersive lilting spiralling of melancholy, urgency, and obsession compelling evocative deft guitar intricacy to sparkle, tinkle, flourish and swirl over doomy bass pulses and stacked, nervous beats, while haunted, emotional vocals, and a soft loose airy falling chorus, observe a woman who appears to be alone, living in her dreams, but we come to find out she is not.
The opening, “Na lošem mjestu / In a bad place”, arrays a humming pulsing bassline in the foreground, shaken by clattering percussions, and focuses on the vocals, which are beautiful and devotional, whilst the guitars are distant, dim and dull, poignantly, and perfectly capturing the helpless lyrical retreat into an inner realm at the hands of an evil environment.
The visuals for “I kad spava“ use treated fragments from the 1943 experimental film “Meshes of the Afternoon”, directed by Maya Deren and Alexander Hammid, to depict the woman described in the lyrics. Despite the original fourteen-minute clip being silent with no sound, the lights, shadows, and symbolism sync seamlessly with Azil’s soundtrack to bring forth a thought-provoking story about the mysteries of the inner world.
Azil‘s debut single, “1”, is out now on digital. The physical micro-edition will soon be available via the Ovozemaljske stvari label website.
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