REZZ - As The Pendulum Swings

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

If in the past Rezz's stylistic signature lay in an almost claustrophobic minimalism, where reverb and visceral bass did all the dirty work, on this new chapter she stops fleeing from the shadows and tries instead to sketch out new and original ones of her own. The album, her fifth, released on her own label HypnoVizion, presents itself as a collection of nocturnal snapshots, of sonic landscapes in which rhythmic obsessiveness clashes with a fragmented, alien melodic quest, underscored by beats that are often slowed down, narcotized.

There's a clear intention to expand into more "popular" territory, embarking on that process of “normalization” aimed at gradually turning a niche stylistic exercise into a potentially mainstream language. The darker weaves of bass music weren't born to make people dance, but to unsettle them, the dark, industrial offshoot of club electronica, born 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, forging an imagery that is turning midtempo into a collective ritual, making the sonic “emptiness” typical of the genre into a big-arena drawing card, without chasing the euphoric “drop” at all costs.

Isabelle crafts “beats”, obsessing over sonic texture, building an atmosphere around it and trying to give life to tracks with structures that aren't overly complex, yet are highly engaging, keeping her “signature” intact while still making the product palatable to an audience not well versed in electronic avant-gardism, 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 only to hypnotize, but to mark the passage of an artistic evolution, pursued through an extensive network of collaborators, starting with her partner Fknsyd, whom she married in September 2024. Fknsyd lends her voice to "Incantation", drawing inspiration from the most menacing Fever Ray, and steps in alongside her friend Isqa on "Delirium", a closing track of great impact, elevated by the presence of strings.

The unsettling "How I Do It" is a three-way collaboration 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". Longtime friends also make an appearance, like EDDIE on "Zone" and k?d in the contagious, hyper-danceable ecstasy of "Substance".

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03/05/2026