Grammy-award-winning, multi-platinum DJ, Zedd releases his first album in nearly a decade. The album “Telos”, a philosophical word coined by Aristotle meaning, the final cause of an entity or human art, was innovative and full of something profound, like it was reaching somewhere. The album features collaborators such as rock icons, John Mayer and Muse, alt-pop connoisseurs Remi Wolf, Dora Jar, and Bea Miller, Irish modern folk band the ollam, and the voice of the late Jeff Buckley.
We directly asked him two questions about it.
Q: What was it like coordinating and working with the collaborators of the album?
A: It was a huge honour. A lot of artists on it inspired me a lot. I grew up listening to John Mayer and Jeff Buckley. Bea Miller helped me finish songs I was stuck on for a while, and she has a very versatile voice. I was honoured to work with artists who pushed me and inspired me.
Q: “Telos” is a very cinematic-sounding album. What films or TV shows do you see specific tracks of “Telos” to be on, if you had to say?
A: Certain songs have certain cinematic connections. My song with Muse before they were even on it always kind of felt like a space movie to me. I always had a visual of something inevitable about to happen, and this long build-up of buildings shot up into space. ‘Shanti’ is very India-based in my head. They all have an overarching cinematic experience. Between my friends, I’m known as the guy who watches two movies a year, so I don’t have a specific movie in mind, but something grand and spacey.
The idea of making another album was birthed during the pandemic. “I felt a little uninspired even though the timeline was perfect,” said Zedd, “I had a bunch of amazing songs sitting on my hard drive, but I didn’t want to make an album just to make one. I wanted it to be special, and realized I was going to make a record for myself, not for algorithms, or even the people who got me to a billion streams. It’s going to be for people who like art and sitting down, listening to music as a form of entertainment.”
As “Telos” is a Greek word describing the ‘final cause’ of human art, finishing the album, something connected rather than glued together, for Zedd was a personal accomplishment and a level of quality he reached when he doubted himself. “It was cinematic, genre-blending, and I wasn’t sure if I could do it,” he said. “A career is a kind of flight, and once you get up, you have a bit of a flight time. Making an album takes more of a flight time than being up there.” It turns the typical EDM sound on its head, and Zedd said he was inspired by multiple genres beyond EDM, such as classical music, funk, and jazz. He spent 9 years in a hardcore metal band, Dioramic, as a drummer, and now you can always find drum fills in his songs.
The ten-year gap between “Telos” and “True Colors” gave him time to further improve his craft and change his music-making progress. He said his knowledge of producing music is better than what it used to be, and the reason things take longer is that he wanted them to be better. He calls his sound mature and not showing off, as he knows the right places to explore. “Ten years ago, I felt very insecure about working on vocal parts of the songs. My English wasn’t as good as it is today, as I grew up in Germany but was born in Russia. I felt insecure and liked leaving the part of the vocals to somebody else. But on “Telos” I was very particular about the vocals and writing it with the singers.”
“Telos” was also different from writing his previous records, such as his hit song ‘Clarity’ with Foxes. It was a hit that sprang to life on its own and didn’t have a concept yet. It became a song while he was helping Lady Gaga with her album. “I thought I might as well make music for myself again as I was waiting,” he said.
Zedd described music as being out of context. He said if he released a song like ‘Sona’ if he did too many things, it might confuse people. To him, music should be on a bigger canvas.
Also, ‘Out of Time’ was a track that was a long time in the making, ten years. “I was very particular about the chord progression. When it was still instrumental, and there was this amazing countermelody, I sent it to my manager. I was so stoked about how it danced against the main melody. Zooming out and looking for what the songs need is something I got better through my years.”
When listening to the album, the songs mix smoothly like a DJ set. It was something Zedd said he wanted to do, especially with recent albums sounding more like a playlist rather than a cohesive body of work. “Some albums want to give you 20 songs, and then they choose 3 songs for playlists. This album has a few breaks. They are very important until you completely produce another song, and when you build your key structures and tempo structures, then you kind of go through one phase and then the next phase.”
With collaboration, however, Zedd somehow doesn’t really like it. As a producer, people expect to put two huge names together and think it’s going to be twice as good, but people’s expectations can be beyond. “Grey and Mesto, and good producers, that together we were able to each something different, something we wouldn’t be able to reach individually. If it wasn’t for John Mayer, I wouldn’t know how to finish ‘Automatic Yes’. People should collaborate and reach different stages with sounds. I love collaborating when it’s done right, but it is not as easy as it sounds.”
But if he had to be honest, Zedd wouldn’t create “Telos” again, but still wouldn’t change anything because he is proud of the project. “It was stressful to get into that mindset. I was constantly thinking about the music I was making. If I had the knowledge I had, I would never do it again. “Telos” being a definition of the end, showed how I put so much into it.”
“Telos” ends on a suspended note, and Zedd said he wanted to have an “Is this it?” feeling. “I wanted it to feel like a hidden track. The end of the sound is like an orchestra tuning their notes, it connects with an orchestra, and it starts and ends. It’s an open-ended thing.
What do we think about “Telos”? Let us know in the comments or on Instagram or Twitter.
Moonbow Magazine 