#bonze

Returning from his previous gripping indie release ‘Out Of My Hands’ is Bonze, a trained psychotherapist at day and a hard-hitting artist at night. From his years worth of music industry experience, Bonze continues to show great care and dedication to his craft, continually releasing music that’s deeply resonant and meticulously perfected. Creating musical landscapes that pivot between underground dance and revelatory song-writing, Bonze is an artist looking to stand out within the masses, and his newest offering ‘Obliterate Me’ just shows why he deservedly will be a name you’ll be hearing much more of.

Bonze’s music continues to be nothing short of unique, and ‘Obliterate Me’ really is no exception, falling deeply into a dark electronic-pop feel influenced by 90’s techno with edges in an array of other genres like rock and metal. As a thumping bass throughout reverberates into the vastly atmospheric soundscape, there’s a constant transportation in the entire three and a half minute song that mentally takes you to powerful live shows and the pulsating energy of nightclubs, leading you on a journey of listening that’s much more than just surface level. A hazy, slightly gritty electric guitar complements these rich undertones along with bright synth soaring beside it, all together seeming to rise and fall between moments of angst and release as well as ethereal bursts. With heavy vocal processing alike most of Bonze’s work, the track sees his filtered lines adding a distorted edge to the track’s vibe, keeping his distance and emotions at bay whilst creating a vocal sound you can’t help but love. Sinking into the lower lines and shining at the highs, Bonze’s dominant vocals top off the adventure of ‘Obliterate Me’ despite how they’re spread and littered throughout, knowing both when to highlight the sound alone and when the message needs to be front and centre. From Bonze’s love of the 90’s rave genre and the testing boundaries that came within the scene, it’s no surprise that ‘Obliterate Me’ feels like a real experimental curveball of a release, but that’s what makes it all the more spectacularly unique in an era where it’s hard to find pure original talent alike nothing else out there.

Written from Bonze’s own darker experiences and emotions as well as directly correlating with the track’s bleaker sonic edge, ‘Obliterate Me’ stems itself from the part of Bonze’s identity that is at the heart destructive. Avoiding negative emotion, attempting not to feel anything deeply and never allowing oneself to open up, ‘Obliterate Me’ finds solace in obliteration rather than acceptance, self-destructive and aware of its own inevitable downfall. The narrative itself is vague and ambiguous, with few and far repeated lyrics that still paint quite the picture hand-in-hand with the striking soundscape. As Bonze sings ‘just obliterate me’ with thumping bass as his company, ‘Obliterate Me’ really sets the scene of one messy night out in an attempt to detach from any and all emotion running through the protagonist’s mind. Seeking pleasure in this attempt to get out of their mind and out of their thoughts, ‘Obliterate Me’ is an anthem for those finding solace in escapism, with all of us likely at some point steering away from what’s healthy to disassociate from things crumbling around us. Hard-hitting lines like ‘come find me, I’m on the edge’ almost plead for help, on the brink of a breakdown and losing themselves in the entanglement of their woes. With such sparse and primarily reused lines throughout, you perhaps wouldn’t expect ‘Obliterate Me’ to hit so hard, and yet everything that Bonze restates comes with such a heaviness both in the power of his words and the sound so intricately interwoven into their delivery. ‘Obliterate Me’ is a song on the edge itself with whether it seems to urge you to feel your emotions or avoid them entirely in the pulsating bass, but it’s a good time regardless of how you take it.

Check out ‘Obliterate Me’ for yourself here to experience the truly resonant soundscape Bonze has formed, alongside a message that’ll linger with those finding familiarity in it.

Written by: Tatiana Whybrow

Photo Credits: Unknown

Bonze, or otherwise known as Jack Reardon, spends his days working as a trained psychotherapist and nights musically bending-genres under the pseudonym Bonze. Driven by internal passions to create, this talented solo artist has incredibly deep roots in music, previously working as an A&R, a guest songwriter, and a top-line artist before forming his own project to be reckoned with that captures essences of the greats like The 1975 whilst all feeling incredibly his own. Now sharing his latest single ‘Out Of My Hands’, Bonze is sure to continue garnering support from the masses and he certainly isn’t slowing down.

Bearing Bonze’s staple sound and unique brand of mind blowing exploratory pop, ‘Out Of My Hands’ carries a strong sound quite unlike anything you’ll have heard before, intertwining rich electronic elements, indie, pop, rock and even hints of lo-fi into one transformative experience. Leading with deep reverberated guitar strums and plucks, the sound carries a strength and rawness from the get-go, setting the scene for the paired back emotional journey the listener is set to undergo. Soft beats ebb and flow throughout, leaving the core of the performance to the guitar whilst keeping a casual intermittent sway in the background of it all. Intentionally heavy on the vocal effects, there’s a haziness to ‘Out Of My Hands’ that leaves you feeling amidst a dream of a soundscape, lost in thought and left to drift away into the vastness. With such few instrumentals, these hefty vocal effects feel almost like an instrument of their own, carrying powerful echoes and resonance that leaves each word to linger for moments after. At times, it’s as though the emotion of ‘Out Of My Hands’ is smothered by the effects and yet that’s what makes it all the more powerful, carrying lyricism with great meaning but told by a storyteller afraid of his own words and the sadness behind them. At just under four minutes in length, ‘Out Of My Hands’ takes you through a real journey of sound, prioritising atmosphere and impact above any number of instruments, and it hits ever-so-hard because of that thoughtful complexity.

Incredibly personal and described to be the most ‘me’ out of all of his releases, ‘Out Of My Hands’ stems from Bonze’s own experiences with both an obvious to infer yet ambiguously described touch due to the metaphorical nature of the writing. Speaking on how at times, no matter how hard you try or what you do, some things remain outside of your control, ‘Out Of My Hands’ quite literally divulges into both the pain and the relief that can come with letting things run their due course knowing you cannot impact the outcome and it’s out of your hands. Whether you view it against more every-day issues like a partner ending a relationship with you, or larger issues like climate change that you can only do so much to impact, ‘Out Of My Hands’ seems melancholic and conflicted, trying to find logic in the lack of control. The repeated emphasis on ‘It’s out of my hands’ at every chorus feels almost like an attempt for Bonze to convince himself of this reality, with no other facts to cling onto other than it simply being out of his ability to do anything, and as such he must accept it to finally let go of the pain it causes to be unable to make change. Self-critical at times too, lines like ‘I keep holding me back… I’ve been spending my time in a castle in the sky’ seem to emphasise a lack of grounding to reality, and an awareness that perhaps his mindset of wanting to constantly be able to make a difference is holding him down from moving onwards from experiences he cannot change. Personal and yet universally relatable, ‘Out Of My Hands’ is sure to resonate with many who also struggle in situations they cannot impact, and Bonze has more than done the insightful narrative justice within his poignant lyricism.

Speaking more on the track, Bonze adds that “Regarding the writing process, this song feels special to me as it is the first song that I wrote entirely with [his producer] Fred. I began writing music myself about 6 years ago when I heard a song called ‘Get Me By’ by an indie duo called ‘San Scout’. It was unlike anything I’d ever heard and it deeply inspired me to write music and release as myself. Fate would have it that I would later meet Fred, the guy who is the reason why I started writing music, and I would co-write and produce my own music with him. It all feels very meta and full-circle. Similarly, this song is a tribute to ‘the things that are meant to be’.”

Check out ‘Out Of My Hands’ for yourself here to unpack the weighty lyrical journey and vastly explorative sound that Bonze has laid out in powerfully atmospheric depth!

Written by: Tatiana Whybrow

Photo Credits: Bonze