Close To You & S3NTIENCE Singles

When I started S3NTIENCE, I knew I wanted the first release to feel substantial.

That became Blind Dates With Deities, a 15-track debut album that was designed to do more than introduce a handful of songs. It was meant to establish the world of S3NTIENCE all at once: the melodies, the atmosphere, the emotional weight, the electronic influences, and the overall sense of scale I wanted the project to have.

That made the album an important first step, but it also made one thing very clear to me: once the foundation was built, the next phase of S3NTIENCE would probably look different.

Blind Dates With Deities: Building the Foundation

There are certain things you have to think about when you’re making an album that don’t necessarily matter in the same way when you’re making a single.

A song has to work on its own, obviously, but inside an album it also has another job. It has to contribute to something larger.

That means thinking about momentum from track to track, how one song transitions emotionally into the next, how much stylistic variation makes sense, where energy should rise or fall, and how much sonic diversity you can introduce before the project starts losing cohesion.

There’s also visual cohesion and thematic cohesion to consider.

A song can tell a story on the song level, but an album can tell a story on two levels at once. Each individual track has its own identity, while the album itself develops another identity through the way those tracks interact with each other.

That was one of the things that made Blind Dates With Deities such an important release for me.

It wasn’t just about putting music out. It was an artistic undertaking. It gave me enough space to explore different parts of the S3NTIENCE sound while still establishing a common foundation underneath everything.

For a debut, that felt important.

I wanted the first thing attached to the name S3NTIENCE to feel like a meaningful body of work rather than just one isolated song.

What Changes When You Move From Albums to Singles

Once the album was finished, though, the advantages of working on singles became pretty obvious.

A single can exist much more independently.

You don’t have to worry about whether it fits between track six and track seven. You don’t have to think about whether the artwork makes sense beside fourteen other songs. You don’t have to make sure its pacing contributes to the larger arc of an album.

It can simply be what it needs to be.

That applies visually too.

Each single can have its own artwork, color palette, atmosphere, energy, and identity without relying on anything that came before or after it. It gets to exist as its own entity.

I’m absolutely open to making more full-length albums in the future, but they’re major undertakings. Before Blind Dates With Deities existed, it was easier to spend several months working on something because there was no existing release schedule or momentum to maintain.

Nothing was out yet.

Now that the project is moving, disappearing for three to six months while working on another full LP wouldn’t necessarily make sense.

Singles and EPs give me more flexibility. They let me keep releasing music consistently while still developing the sound and trying new things.

The first real example of that shift was Close To You, released on August 28.

Close To You: Building Around Two Defining Ideas

It’s actually hard for me to remember exactly what sparked the original idea for Close To You.

It might have been the vocals. It might have been the lead melody.

What I do remember very clearly is that once those two elements existed, I knew they were the identity of the track.

The vocals had a distinct emotional quality, and the lead synth had this gritty, recognizable character that immediately gave the song personality.

Those became the two pillars.

From there, the rest of the production was built around them.

That process is different from starting with a broad concept and then trying to fill in the details later. In this case, the most important parts of the song were already telling me what the rest of the record needed to become.

Everything else had to support those two ideas rather than compete with them.

The drums, bass, supporting layers, transitions, and overall arrangement all had to create enough movement and energy to make the vocal and lead feel even bigger when they arrived.

That’s probably part of why Close To You feels so immediately recognizable to me.

It has a very obvious center of gravity.

Why Close To You Stands Apart

Musically, Close To You also leans more heavily into trance than almost anything else I’ve made so far.

I’d say trance is present somewhere in the DNA of most S3NTIENCE tracks, even when it’s subtle.

Sometimes it’s in the melodic writing.

Sometimes it’s in the atmosphere.

Sometimes it shows up in the way tension and release are handled.

But the amount of trance influence can vary quite a bit from track to track.

With Close To You, that influence is much more obvious.

It moves closer to modern or deep trance territory, even though I still wouldn’t call it a completely traditional trance record.

That blend is part of what makes it interesting to me.

It still feels connected to the rest of the catalog, but it pushes one particular side of the S3NTIENCE sound further forward than I had before.

And even though it’s only been out for roughly a month, it has already established itself as one of the standout tracks in the catalog.

It sits comfortably alongside songs like Neon Revelry and Pools of Fire, which are also among the tracks that have connected most strongly so far.

More importantly, though, Close To You feels distinct.

It has its own sonic identity, its own visual identity, and its own emotional space.

That’s exactly what I want from a single.

What Comes Next for S3NTIENCE

The next release is already very close.

R3born arrives on October 2nd and continues the next phase of S3NTIENCE as the project moves deeper into standalone releases.

There’s also another atmospheric EDM single already in the mixing and mastering phase that should arrive around late October or early November, with several additional projects still being planned for the rest of the year.

The goal is to keep moving.

Every release gives me another opportunity to refine the sound, improve the production, push into a slightly different lane, and build on what came before it without having to force every idea into one giant project.

Blind Dates With Deities established the foundation.

The singles are what come next.

If you’re into melodic and progressive electronic music with strong trance roots, big euphoric sounds, and prominent vocals, check out Close To You on Spotify.

There’s a lot more coming.