Our observation of, connection to and understanding of time has changed over the course of the past year. The nature of business, procedural operations, approaches to leisure and pleasure and more has pivoted to a distanced and largely solitary affair. Gone have been the free range dalliances of social engagement with most on sight gatherings, in their place Zoom meetings, FaceTime, infinite doom scrolling and a host of meticulously and obsessively planned distanced hangs plagued by constant concerns over safety feeding exacerbated levels of fear and paranoia. With the outside world posing a threat to both our health and the health of those around us, the fortitude green zones of our home pods provide senses of security even while diminishing the cycles of conventional scheduling as the calendar spreadsheets melt into a singular extended day and night without a name, specific number or reasonable chronologically progressive metric of logic.

Measuring this sensation of moving while remaining in place is Azusena with a first listen to the time and place tripping “Ticking Clocks”. The US by way of the UK artist follows on the heels of singles “Too Late”, “Better” and more with a tune that encapsulates the thoughts and feelings that tick and tock along rabbit holes of diversion and mind games of amorous croquet. Azusena takes measurements of what moments in suspended animation mean, how they are monetized, exploding the time is money mythologies with a smoldering and smoky late-capitalist haunting delivery. Disaffectedly lamenting the unimpressive dividends and frozen assets of a cold and cryptic universe stuck in the freeze frame mode of pause, Azusena’s harmonic and often spoken breathy whispers arise from the ennui with a confidence that exalts the glamorous echelon of truths and beauty above the humdrum lowlands. The keys rhythmically mock the brass hands of the patriarchal clocks that rises above the rubbish state of modern life, by singing out like a lark free from the mechanisms that count out the seconds of a dull day — working to do away all together with time’s outdate constraints during an era where both its value and meaning as a construct has been significantly reduced as a necessity.

Azusena shared the following insights on the preoccupations that informed the new single “Ticking Clocks”:

I was fixated with clocks. They were haunting me. My relationship with time was changing. The pandemic put me in the Red Queen’s slow sort of country. In her Kingdom you have to run as fast as you can just to stay in the same place.

Listen to more from Azusena via Spotify.