Just because you’re with someone doesn’t mean you’re not lonely. You can sit in a room full of friends and family and still feel a million miles away. Romantic relationships turn cold while we’re still in them, and it’s not until we take a hard look in the mirror that we see any way out.
LA-based producer Away found himself in similar straits not too long ago. His music has always played in the sensual side of shadows, but when it came to his latest single “Too Close,” the gloom went deeper than his friends and collaborators MIdoca and Dark Waves even realized.
“The majority of the song was finished within hours,” Away tells Billboard Dance. “It almost felt as if the muses were feeding the record to us, it was something that needed to be shared with the world. As ‘Too Close’ was written, unknown to Midoca and Dark Waves, it became personal for me. When it came together, it painted a visual of the dark period I was living through at the time and acted as a mirror, helping me reflect on the mental prison I had constrained myself in and what I needed to set fire to in my life in order to move forward.”
“Too Close” captures a beautiful kind of sadness in rich sonic layers. Acoustic guitar sets a somber mood that builds over satelitte blips, ghostly voices, rumbling bass and static glitch. The lyrics, sung by Dark Waves, tells of the story of falling apart. It’s heavy and cinematic, and it gets the full short-film treatment with a music video directed by Viiision. Two men are chained together, simultaneously at war with and completely dependent upon one another.
“‘Too Close’ is about the delicate boundaries found near the end of a relationship,” Midoca says, “a closer and introspective examination of an impending doom … We recorded ‘Too Close’ over two sessions. It’s a great representation of all three of us and to have [Viiision] direct the music video was a perfect amalgamation of all of us.”
Away has a history of theatrical videos, and he plans to bring that drama to the stage soon with a live show later this year. Midoca recently wrapped support on Getter’s Viseral live tour. Watch the video for “Too Close” below, exclusively on Billboard Dance.