To songwriter and producer Bilgi aka dezabel, a recorded single is a complete body of work, not just a three-minute collection of notes, chords and beats. Listening to his latest song, “When It Comes To You”, it’s easy to imagine how much love and emotion he put into the organization of it: the music arrangement, the words and narrative – which is a tribute to friendship, trust and feeling understood – and the vocals which serves the song as a storyteller conveying sentiment and reason.
It’s an accumulation of who dezabel is, in a specific moment in time. And when his emotions run high, he doesn’t mince words. Alongside co-writers Jazelle Rodriguez and Ben Botfield, dezabel’s lyrics get straight to the point: “When I come home, when the day is done. When I’m sick and tired of everybody’s questions. Wanna be alone right next to you.”
Without even looking at the song credits, you immediately sense a superb professional’s vocal prints on this track. Her cadences in the verses and choruses is unmissable. She leaves complex vocal aesthetics behind to strip down the story she is presenting, and the result is something which, interestingly, is as layered as it is sincere.
Her voice, permanently conscious yet never strictly technical, soars and sinks always charged with emotion. This is the perfect match for dezabel’s rich production with its tonal contrasts and orchestrated brightness, explicitly flashing the resonating piano notes by courtesy of Tim Heiniger.
Beyond his ability to create a fascinating narrative, dezabel knows how to design a downright fantastic track in all of its facets. “When It Comes To You” fully shows off dezabel’s dexterity in crafting an entertaining sequence of musical elements.
Each of which seamlessly flows into the next, anchoring the song by developing a compelling core for the entire arrangement. To connect these elements, dezabel uses a variety of methods, including the aforementioned earnest vocals and piano lines. His transitions and chord progressions are consistently respectable, adding chart-potential spice to the mix.
It simply takes one listen to see the immense depth and beauty of “When It Comes To You”, and it also helps that this is dezabel’s most polished and poignant song to date. The sleekness of the instrumentation juxtaposes the meticulous lyricism so well, it solidifies this love ballad.
The ability to transcend easy categorization has often been the key for some of music history’s most successful artists. And just like those artists, dezabel defies stylistic definition. His music has the ability to exist and thrive across the artificial boundaries defined by streaming services and radio programmers. It was clearly heard on “Another Drink”, and is now completely confirmed by “When It Comes To You”.
Bilgi alias dezabel, who formed his musical foundation at The Academy of Contemporary Music during the nineties, and continues to develop his skills and knowledge in Songwriting and Music Production at the Berklee College of Music, blends Pop and Electronic, with contemporary R&B, and even jazz influences in his latest creation.
dezabel’s well thought-out production allows listeners to fully understand the narrative and the emotions behind the song. “When It Comes To You” is a song that you can relate to on both a musical, and a personal level.
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