Parov Stelar is known for his unmistakable sound. Since the early 2000s, he has been blending jazz and swing with breakbeats, house, and electronic music.
Songs like ‘All Night’ and ‘Booty Swing’ became worldwide hits, and he has thrilled audiences at festivals such as Coachella, Glastonbury, Sziget and Lollapalooza Berlin as well as headlining London’s Somerset House earlier this summer. Ten Amadeus Awards document his success, as do collaborations with global stars like Lana Del Rey, Lady Gaga and Bryan Ferry.
But Parov Stelar’s art goes deeper, something which he proves with his ambitious new album ‘Artifact’. Set to be released on November 14th via his own Etage Noir Recordings and distributed by AWAL, he previews the album with the new single ‘Rebel Love’. Watch the official video BELOW.
Throughout ‘Artifact’, the electronic foundation that has shaped his work from the very beginning is still part of the framework. But more than ever, it is supplemented, broken up, and questioned. The tracks range between sweeping, timeless pop and electronic concepts, late-romantic grandeur and cinematic power. Having previously integrated classical sounds into his work before, this album makes those elements more central than ever before. For its creator, ‘Artifact’ hits the sweet spot between his self-confessioned control freak tendencies and the thrill of experimentation.
Parov Stelar says, “What makes me happy about ‘Artifact’ is that after 30 years of making music, I’ve landed back where it all began: in curiosity, in wonder, in, ‘What happens if I just try this now?’ For me, it was like a rush. Every day brought new ideas, new images, new sounds. I felt completely immersed in the world of this project. At times, it was a real tsunami of emotions.”
The album’s concept explores the artifacts – the little traces – that everyone leaves along their life journey: memories, fragments, scraps of thought that have their own reality and sense of time. The inspiration comes in part from the fading half-memories of childhood, but also his interest in parallel worlds, different dimensions, past lives and afterlives.
The lead single ‘Rebel Love’ demonstrates Parov Stelar’s disregard for genre conventions. It fuses evocative and atmospheric strings and the dynamic energy of electronica to create a sophisticated, genre-colliding track that’s fuelled as much from its dynamics as it is from its instantly memorable melody.
‘Rebel Love’ is accompanied by a cinematic visual set in the late 19th century, its mood heightened by its stark monochrome photography. An explorer leaves Austria for unchartered lands, but his mission appears to be an ill-fated one… but he may yet be tailed by potential salvation.
It’s part of the wider visual universe which will emerge around the ‘Artifact’ album. The videos for the individual songs feel like dreams turned into images, where nostalgic VHS aesthetics, sci-fi motifs, and visual references to the roaring Twenties, the Fifties, and other eras collide with an intimacy that feels very organic. They are elaborate productions that take viewers into other worlds. Each mini-narrative is open-ended, full of suggestions, gaps, and side paths that allows the viewer to become a virtual co-collaborator: the traces that each of us recognise and relate to give ‘Artifact’ our own individual interpretations.
Be the first to comment