Azure Ryder emerged as a significant new talent in 2020, her first two EPs ‘Running With The Wolves’ and ‘Crazy With The Light’ earning major airplay and mainstream media attention in her homeland of Australia as well as a wealth of tastemaker tips in the UK.
Since her third set, ‘Ladder To The Moon’, was released in 2021, Azure has released her take on the Nina Simone classic ‘Feeling Good’ (which saw her perform on Sydney Harbour Bridge, the first time the location was used in a music video) and has since focused all attention on crafting a new body of work, a potion brewed from “gritty stardust.” Today marks the ‘rebirth’ in which she describes as “the closest she has ever felt to herself,” after piecing her voice back together. Now emerges a new beginning for Azure Ryder with the release of her new single ‘Angel’.
‘Angel’ sees Azure returning with utmost confidence, drawing upon self-empowerment to precisely target the weaknesses of men who seek to control women to mask their own insecurities. Azure’s vocal control is a step above what we’ve heard from her before, its rich tone sparkling with conviction but also with a style that’s very distinctively her own. The song’s indie-rock possesses a poppy accessibility, a dreamy ambience and a swampy blues undercurrent, placing Azure in the lineage of great female singer-songwriters stretching from Stevie Nicks and Carole King to Norah Jones and Phoebe Bridgers.
Azure says: “I see ‘Angel’ as kicking down the door on this reoccurring narrative that women particularly have had written for them: ‘Once Upon A Time’ - a fairytale romanticising the power position that men hold in love. They become an authority on something that they all too commonly reject, because they find it too much.
“Life comes with pain, light comes with darkness, one simply cannot exist without the other that is what makes us human, it’s what stops us from flatlining and I’d rather feel everything, than nothing at all. Love is infinite, it’s courageous and I see this continuous limitation on when, where, who and how much is deserved, we all deserve it. So if you have ever been told to hide your heart if you have been made to feel like you are both not enough and too much for people, I say, they missed out on a goddamn ‘Angel’.”
Azure wrote ‘Angel’ with its producer Jules Apollinaire, co-founder of cult leftfield pop adventurers TTRRUUCES and producer for artists such as Black Honey, Sophie and the Giants, and Suki Waterhouse.
Growing up in a small coastal town in Sydney, Azure Ryder has always been influenced by the natural beauty that surrounds her, which provided an earthy natural touch in unison with her emotionally stirring lyricism. Her early musical touchpoints came from her family’s love of Elvis and Sam Cooke as well as the gospel sounds of church - both elements which add a timeless spiritual touch to the music she now makes.
Her song writing casts a spell on a wide-range of people, leading to collabs with top tier writers including Isa Summers (Florence + The Machine), Nick Atkinson (Declan J Donovan) and Edd Holloway(Lewis Capaldi) as well as creative partnerships with luxury fashion brands Zimmerman, Coach, the tourist board Destination NSW, and the Bangarra Dance Theatre, a company of professional Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander performers.
