Despite releasing so much music over the past year, none of Taquwami’s music to this point has ever sounded particularly romantic. His tracks evoked feelings of wonder, warmth, peacefulness and all sorts of other emotions, but never seemed to touch on the ultimate song theme – love. He didn’t even reserve those for his Occult You persona – his works under that name were more obsessed with the physical, but not that sort of physicality.
So it’s a little bit of a shock to see the tracklisting for Taquwami’s debut EP Blurrywonder, which based off titles along is obsessed with love. “Ohhh Lover,” “Attraction” and “You R Everything” give us a pretty good idea of what’s on Taquwami’s mind…”Queen!,” maybe…and after listening to lead-off track “Romantic Gaze,” it sounds like this release will focus on matters of the heart. The vibe might be different, but Taquwami’s sonic approach hasn’t changed – “Romantic Gaze’ places chunks of altered vocals over rapid-fire drum machine and glowing synth. Yet the way the singing trips over itself as the synths go off like a fountain of sparks sounds different than other Taquwami sounds, where the manipulated sampling seemed more dreamy or alien. Maybe I’m just too caught up in the “love” theme implied by the tracklisting, but “Romantic Gaze” sounds nervous and flustered, but also thrilled and lively like running into a crush randomly on the street. Listen below.