Azure Ray documents the collision between two distinct musical sensibilities: the sweetly airy, bittersweet pop of Maria Taylor and the buzzier, busier, frequently electronic sounds of Orenda Fink. The two have worked separately quite a bit in recent years — Taylor as a solo artist and Fink both solo and as half of O+S — but in Azure Ray, they still meet in the creamy, dreamy midpoint between their individual sounds.
The Omaha duo is capable of weaponizing its melancholy to devastating effect, but Azure Ray's forthcoming six-song As Above So Below EP (out Sept. 4) finds the pair mining considerably gentler territory. Working on a bed of clicks and ahhhhhhs, Taylor unleashes what amounts to a long, slow summer swoon: "You know you bring joy to everything," she sings, awash in unguarded optimism. The devastating melancholy will come later.
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