Alois — Azul

“When I was feeling depressed a friend of mine once told me that if I look up at the sky that I will feel better”. – Martin Schenker/ vocalist

The sophomore record from Swiss synth-pop mavericks Alois is called Azul, which means blue in Spanish. And like an expansive, saturated summer sky is a soothing and generous gradient of blues. Full of warm, life-affirming energies softly infused with a deep-seated melancholy. The songwriting combines what the band loosely call Caribbean disco – all manners of Caribbean and African music – with elements of contemporary electronica, 80s synth-wave, balearic, dub and hints of trap. It’s a hybridised pop with a heavy predilection for the dance floor.

“The whole writing and production process took about a year. We set up in our studio in Lucerne and tried to create a sonicjungle – a tropical environment full of synths, drum machines and a ton of lo-fi gear”. – Martin Schenker / vocalist

Alois are a proper band. They come from jazz and relish playing out. Which makes the fact that Azul is a full on studio record – as in the studio used as an instrument – quite intriguing. Most of these compositions started with programming and sequencing, the preliminary sketches were crafted in the same way that functional club tracks are made. Once these outlines were in place, that’s when the band went wild with over-dubs. Guitars, percussion, the mellotron, additional synths and, of course, the vocals were added at this stage. These recordings were then processed and reconstructed with something of a dub-like approach. Everything was passed through analog outboard equipment and the sound design sculpted with extreme care. The end result defends itself on headphones and club sound systems alike. It’s thick, punchy and full of detail. Azul is a record about life, love, loss and healing. It’s full of existential musings, but feels like a shapeshifting cloud formation or a fleeting dream. Martin likens the music to Luc Besson’s cult-classic film Le Grand Bleu (The Big Blue) which is set in the world of apnea diving.

“Our new material is definitely body music. It’s supposed to make you dance, but it also deals withdeep emotions. It’s very much like free-diving, but you’re diving into your own unconsciousness.”