Rezz

Midtempo-bass, that's what they call it, bass music built around 100-110 bpm, exactly what Isabelle Rezazadeh has been working on for several years now. Born in Ukraine on March 28, 1995, to a Ukrainian mother and an Iranian father, she emigrated with her family to Canada, Ontario, near Niagara Falls, while still young. At 16, Rezz, her stage name, already had her hands on the mixer, playing other artists' music. But it wasn't long before she became a producer in her own right, starting with her first experiments captured in 2015 on "Insurrection". Today she's one of the world's foremost exponents of visual music, capable of releasing albums of immense value and headlining the trendsetting festivals: at Coachella 2026 only Anyma managed to impress more than her, an undisputed icon of a certain dark-electronic imagery that constantly flirts with the occult and dystopian science fiction. The light design of her shows is highly hypnotic, built from ever-shifting vortices and optical illusions, and she's an integral part of it, with her LED glasses that everyone would love to own. An icon of the electro scene who refuses to lose her experimental streak.

If in her early work Rezz's stylistic signature lay in an almost claustrophobic minimalism, where reverb and visceral bass did all the dirty work, over time she has stopped fleeing from shadows and started trying to outline new and original ones herself. Her fifth album, "As The Pendulum Swings", released on her own label HypnoVizion, comes across as a collection of nocturnal snapshots, of sonic landscapes in which rhythmic obsessiveness clashes with a fragmented, alien melodic search, underlined by often slowed-down, narcotized beats. There's a clear intention to expand into more "popular" territory, embarking on that process of "normalization" aimed at gradually turning a stylistic exercise meant for a niche into a potentially mainstream language. The darkest weaves of bass music weren't born to make people dance, but to unsettle them, a dark, industrial offshoot of club electronics, the offspring of the aesthetic dictated by Nine Inch Nails, of which "Running From Yourself" here stands as one of the most eloquent examples. Rezz picks up that legacy and "festivalizes" it, creating an imagery that is turning mid-tempo into a collective ritual, making the sonic "emptiness" typical of the genre an attraction fit for big arenas, without chasing the euphoric "drop" at all costs.

Isabelle crafts "beats", obsessively curating the sonic texture, building an atmosphere around it and trying to bring to life tracks with structures that aren't overly complex, yet are highly engaging, keeping her "signature" intact while making the product digestible even for an audience unused to electronic avant-garde, stepping out of the ghetto of "dark rave music" to integrate into the modern electropop landscape. The pendulum of the title, then, doesn't swing just to hypnotize, but to mark the tempo of an artistic evolution, pursued through an extensive network of collaborators, starting with her partner Fknsyd, whom she married in September 2024. Fknsyd provides vocals on "Incantation", drawing inspiration from the most menacing side of Fever Ray, and joins forces with her friend Isqa on "Delirium", a hugely impactful closer, elevated by the presence of strings. The unsettling "How I Do It" is a three-way project shared with producer Dillon Francis and French artist BRVMES, Canadian duo Chuurch feature on "Telepathy", Swedish musician Owl Vision on "Downward" and New Orleans producer CABLE on "Glass Veins". There are also longtime friends on board, like EDDIE on "Zone" and k?d on the infectious, hyper-danceable ecstasy of "Substance".

Over the years, Rezz's journey as a producer has advanced hand in hand with a growing focus on the visual side, the linchpin of her intensely psychedelic shows. Over the span of about a decade, Rezz has become one of the world's most celebrated dj-producers, confirming her status in 2026 with the EP "A Shift In Perspective", after which her performance at the first weekend of the Coachella Festival 2026 made a strong impression.