Azure Ray and Flower Moon Records are pleased to present “I Don’t Want To Want To” the final pre-release single from the band’s album Remedy out June 18(pre-order). “I Don’t Want To Want To” was supposed to be an interlude, but then it grew into the closing track on the record. The band says, “It’s a song about coming to terms with letting go. How as we get older, we get softer and we don’t have the fight left in us. For better and for worse.”
The video for “I Don’t Want To Want To” which was directed & edited by Azure Ray, can be shared at YouTube and the single is streaming now at Spotify. The new single follows up singles, “Phantom Lover,””Bad Dream” and “Remedy” which have caught the ears of Pitchfork, Stereogum, Paste, American Songwriter, SPIN Magazine, UPROXX and many more. Last month the band released the official video for their single “Phantom Lover, which was shot in the Mojave Desert entirely in night vision on a Sony X70 Camcorder and two trail cameras.
More on the video from Azure Ray: “Phantom Lover” is about lifting each other up in hard times. Sometimes you just need someone to tell you everything will be alright, even if you don’t believe it…Even though they are their natural predators, the desert sheep help the baby coyotes (played by Maria’s sons) in their time of distress and dance the night away. The result is NatGeo meets David Lynch.Remedy marks the 50th release on Taylor’s label, Flower Moon Records. The new 10 song LP will be available on digital platforms, CD, and vinyl in three color variants with a special illustrated lyric booklet, plus limited edition bundles featuring a custom-blended “Remedy” essential oil roller.
Twenty years have passed since Maria Taylor and Orenda Fink released their self-titled debut record as Azure Ray. Those familiar with their work now know that it was the tragic death of Taylor’s then boyfriend which abruptly transformed the duo’s relationship to music – their alt-rock roots gave way to the now signature, dreamlike soundscapes that became known as “whisper core” with songs like “Sleep” & “Rise.” The influence of Taylor & Fink’s hushed & intimate, ASMR-like delivery combined with hypnotic atmospherics is unmistakably apparent in (and openly acknowledged by) today’s chart- topping songwriters. After four full length albums, multiple cities, two hiatuses, and one pandemic, their timeless, genre-defining sound returns with a bold new fortitude with Remedy.
Produced by Brandon Walters (Lord Huron, Joshua Radin), the band worked individually through the COVID-19 pandemic across three separate recording locations in southern California to craft Azure Ray’s first full length album in 10 years. With Remedy, Taylor and Fink sought to explore new structural arrangements and sonic dynamics, providing Walters with both the creative direction and freedom to expand upon the bands long-established ambient sound. Reoccurring themes of tragedy, chaos and anxiety present from the very first Azure Ray record (as a result of immense personal loss) reveal themselves with new meaning set against a world – not just their own lives – in turmoil. However impartial it sounds, the result is the best version of Azure Ray ever captured to tape (or computer). It’s the same Maria and Orenda who have lulled us through devastating agony and lifted our hearts over the last two decades, unchanged in their ability to find beauty in darkness, hope in desolation.
