Performing as Azure Blue, Tobias Isaksson looks back to the 1980s for much of his sound on his new release Rule of Thirds, and he considers three romantic break-ups as his lyrical inspiration. That doesn’t mean he’s just a nostalgia act, though, as his electro-pop takes its own turns and his emotional reflections reveal a certain amount of mature distance (even if he might be hiding some of those feelings in pop culture references).
The just-released video for “Seasons” skips the pop culture for the classical, opening with a description of the mythological sirens. The opening’s off-putting, hinting that an ex-lover was simply a call to calamity, but the song’s dreamy and not offended, Isaksson embracing the time to let go. The new age-y feel to the video supports this idea without completely relinquishing longing. There’s something uncomfortable about the visuals that suggests there’s a stronger attachment here than we’re led to believe, and the video maintains a tension between the music’s calm release, the video’s soft images, and the idealization of the female form that drives our heartbroken singer to a romanticized sort of hurt, even if he wants to move into the season of release.