When Harry Styles released Aperture, his latest single, it became clear that his music is heading in a different direction (good name for a boyband, that). With its sculpted white noise, atmospheric chords, lo-fi synthesised beats and heavyweight bass, the song has more in common with minimal techno than traditional pop chart fodder.
Early reviews of Aperture’s parent album – Kiss all the time. Disco, occasionally. – suggest that this is more than an aberration, and that Styles and his collaborators, including regular producer Kid Harpoon are, for the moment at least, living their best electronic music lives.
Styles has now provided some context for all this in a new interview with Runner’s World – in his time off from being a pop star, he’s also become a sub-three-hour marathon man, let’s not forget – and indicated that his latest renaissance is at least partly inspired by some revelatory moments on the dancefloor.
“Good electronic music is so good, you know – especially the melodic aspect,” he says. “When you’re out at night, it’s such a community, but you’re also watching people have such individual experiences.”
“I wanted to recreate [what] I had on the dancefloor, being lost in instrumentation and the musicality. It was so immersive, like, this is how I want to feel when I’m on stage too.”
Styles suggests that the community aspect of electronic music became particularly appealing to him as he started to think in “existential” terms about what he was contributing to the world.
“I don’t want it to feel like a sermon I’m delivering,” he says. “I wanted it to feel like, ‘Oh, we’re in this music together.’ Like I’m in it with you.”
Styles was speaking to author Haruki Murakami – another keen pavement pounder who went so far as to write a book on the subject – and says that electronic music has helped him with his running, too.
“When you’re training for a marathon, which is the loneliest part, you just kind of set out for a run, and three hours later you come back,” Styles notes. “But there’s a real synergy between that and electronic music. It’s kind of hypnotic and becomes like a mantra almost.
“I used to have song playlists but realised that I’d be too aware of saying to myself, ‘OK, just 20 more songs to go.’”
With electronic music, though – artists such as Floating Points and Jamie XX, or mixes by German techno DJs Fadi Mohem and Ben Klock, we’re told – Styles is now able to find that state of flow.
“The shift felt just very hypnotic, like ‘Oh I’m really lost in this thing.’ It was helpful to my running to get to that place where I felt like I was meditating right there. It makes the time go by in such a different way.”
To celebrate the release of Kiss all the time. Disco, occasionally. (it’s out on 6 March), Styles has announced pop-up shops in 16 cities around the world, which should give him ample opportunity to sell the limited-edition merch items he’s dropping.
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