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Music

The Blaze Will Be the Best Electronic Duo to Ever Do It

"It" being make both their own visuals and tracks so deftly capture the transcendence and togetherness of electronic music.
Ryan Bassil
London, GB
Photo by Nicolas Poillot

At its core, music is a spiritual practice. It is, in essence, the bringing of spirit to life. And by extension of this, electronic music can often be the purest extension of this idea – speaking as it does in little more than tones, subtle shifts in sound and soaring highs and thundering lows that are united in one mission: to make the listener feel something deep inside or perhaps beyond them.

Since the release of their debut video "Virile" in January 2016, French duo The Blaze have excelled in this practice. Where before we've seen the likes of Daft Punk or Justice create their own highly colourised worlds, The Blaze create from something so amorphous I can only really describe it as the atmosphere of the earth – and then the duo bring those most pure elements to light. "Virile" and its follow up video "Territory" centred firmly on human emotion and expression. As their most recent press release states, the group have one wish: "that you're able to feel."

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Tuesday night's release "Heaven" (watch above) sits in a similar place to these past videos and it is, as the French might say, magnifique. Maybe some other electronic duo out there have already achieved what The Blaze are doing to such a high quality and I'm completely happy to be corrected but their exploration of humanity through the combined medium of sound and visuals feels unique.

By showcasing people of all ages and races coming together they've managed to capture the transcendence of electronic music. In fact, given France's colonial past and longstanding history with racial discrimination, the video represents an almost utopian view – one in which music can be a pure and unifying force.

On top of that, they've brought something I believe exists deep inside all of us to life, and that is the spirit of life itself. That sounds like some hippy shit and it completely is but if The Blaze were going to start a religion then consider myself indoctrinated and ready to pray at their altar.

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