Azure Blue - Beneath The Hill I Smell The Sea (2015)

Azure Blue returns with his third album, the final part of a trilogy that began in 2011 with the album Rule Of Thirds . Azure Blue is Stockholm s Tobias Isaksson (Laurel Music, Irene). Beneath The Hill I Smell The Sea emerges from the sombre and introspective earlier chapters of the trilogy to embrace a host of guest vocalists for this finale. In total, seven vocalists join Azure Blue on this record, including Amanda Mair, César Vidal (Caesars) and Per Magnusson (Sportsman). This time around, Azure Blue produced the album himself over seven months in his Stockholm studio. It has a cleaner sound; it is significantly crisper and more modern than the records that precede it, incorporating textural nuances of both classic hip-hop and dance music in to the lush, analogue escapism that links all three records. With his debut album in 2012, Azure Blue won Sweden s prestigious Manifestigalan Best Pop Album. 2013's sophomore album, Beyond The Dreams There's Infinite Doubt, received acclaim from The Line Of Best Fit "the record continues through a lustrous sea of texture and emotion that s delivered with incredible panache. When not performing as Azure Blue, Tobias is half of the duo Personal Trainers alongside Peter Moren [Peter, Bjorn and John]. Press Quotes : The best electro-pop record in recent memory. Blurt Magazine // His touch is tender and light, and the album s best songs always swing to the sky, riding up on decades of learning from drum machines and tangled relationships The Fader // Rarely does synth-pop meet with indiepop to such stunning effect. The man s pulled off the trick again; these are classics. SoundsXP // a melange of 80s synthpop textures and 90s shoegaze vocals mixed with that wall of sound, perfected by pop music back in the 60s. Pop Matters