Following five years in Japan, culminating in his 2016 mini-album Tokyo, Cleary now resides in France, and the impact of his surroundings is evidence in the sound here on It’s Only Fiction. Having worked as a protégé to the legendary Laurent Garnier, French-Irish artist Yann Cleary is focused on creating a crisp take on electronic pop, channeling the straight lines and understated production of Phoenix and french indie.
Clear vocals, gentle organs and snappy drums come together in the opening bars of It’s Only Fiction to create a vulnerable sense of introspection. History has seen a long-term movement away from the subjectivity of isolated communities, of magic, gods, witches, and curses as explanations for what we didn’t yet understand, towards science and objective truth. The past ten years, more than perhaps any time in history, however, have seen our sense of what is real being eroded. Whether in politics, the news, or through interactions with AI, the notion of what is fact has actively become less certain than it was.
Working together with producer Neus, Yann Cleary’s new single reflects this sense of unreality. Depicting relationships in a digital age, It’s Only Fiction feels like a response to the growing trend for a kind of faux-intimacy struck up with a large-language model. At the same time, the song is as relevant to our relationships with real people through social media, or the para-social sense of connection to celebrities and influencers. Cleary slides closer to the subject of his affection whilst reminding himself, “It’s only fiction”, the side note that “there are no consequences” perhaps the song’s most telling line. Connection without potential to be impacted by another person is ultimately not real connection.
Check out It’s Only Fiction below.
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