Kiwiani is a new shapeshifter for electronic music. With the introduction of their latest single, "Close," Kiwiani creates a listening experience that invites you to enter a surrealist painting dark yet ebullient, familiar yet exotic. This immersive, hypnotic work of art needs to be felt at least as much as it is heard.
The first notes of "Close" suck you into its intricate soundscape, where warped synths and bit-crushed textures tumble under ethereal, pitch-shifted vocals. There's a polymorphous tension in the track, a feeling of aliveness, an ebb and flow between beauty and distortion, structure and chaos. Traces of forward-thinking producers like Flume and SOPHIE are apparent, but Kiwiani warps those influences into something distinctly theirs. The unconventional rhythms hold you in suspension, never entirely signaling where the track might strike next, which makes for a thrilling unsettledness that's hard to find in today's electronic sound.
What distinguishes "Close" is its careful layering. With each listen, new sonic details come to light, glitchy percussive elements that flame in and out, delicate melodies lying just below the surface, and subtle shifts in tone that heighten "Close" hypnotic qualities. It's a song that reveals itself like a puzzle and pays off for listeners who want to engage fully.
With this release , Kiwiani has demonstrated that they're not just creating sound. They're building entire worlds. "Close" results from boundary-pushing sonics, an audacious offering that has left you craving more from this mysterious and genre-challenging artist.