Ilyah
2020 has been a great year for emerging pop singers. From the smooth southern sounds of a burgeoning American surrealist movement to the acrylic worldbeat of more experimental outfits to the north and east, listeners have had their pick with regards to indie hit-makers lately, but few of the artists I’ve reviewed in the last year have made as grand an impression on me as Ilyah recently has. Ilyah has been making polished pop melodies on his own for a couple of years now, mostly flying under the radar of domestic pop importers, but his status is getting the spotlight it deserves this spring thanks to the release of “Habibi.” His latest single and music video, “Habibi” is a culmination of this artist’s compositional odyssey, and one of the most endearing songs of its kind I’ve heard this May.
MORE ON ILYAH: https://www.ilyahmusic.com/
The percussion in this track is undeniably as communicative as any of the vocal parts are, and I love the fact that Ilyah never sounds even slightly dependent on linguistics as his only means of getting a point across to us here. There are so many different ways that a musician can address his or her audience; on this occasion, the bilingual Ilyah employs multiple languages, a vanquished bassline and swaggering groove in specific roles, each of which contributes to the larger narrative at hand. His words are as cerebral as a psychedelic harmony, but they don’t need additional breaking down to appreciate. Even at its most postmodern in style, “Habibi” is frills-free pop, which is something almost any of us can get excited about.
I would love to hear what “Habibi” is going to sound like live, and if the pressure mounts on Ilyah on the backend of the success he’ll potentially run into with its release, resisting the urge to hit the open road in support of his moniker’s new material will be difficult to put it very mildly. This is the type of song that could be manipulated almost a hundred different ways depending on the setting that its performer was given, and something tells me that its subsequent shape could change from night to night on tour. Ilyah has a versatility that some of his peers would kill for, but he isn’t sounding even somewhat cocky in his work (and that’s definitely not a given in this genre of music).
Though I only got into his sound just recently, I’m very eager to hear more of what Ilyah is going to produce as he finds his footing in today’s ever-changing music industry. He’s only a couple of years into his career, but he’s already learning to adapt his style of play to suit different atmospheres in a way that many of his rivals would spend an entire lifetime trying to perfect. “Habibi” is exactly the type of pop music that he should be composing and performing right now, and despite all of the talent he’s coming up against this spring, I’d place his work in the top tier of the indie market for sure.
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Trace Whittaker
Newcastle-upon-Tyne
5/2020
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