ART d'ECCO, SERENE DEMON

For Serene Demon, his fourth album, Canadian artist Art d’Ecco stepped into the streets of New York to chase something unfiltered and human. The result is a cinematic, glam-tinged art rock record that thrives on contradiction: playful yet brooding, structured yet abstract, existential yet driven by groove. For Art it's not just a sonic shift, it’s a philosophical one.

Influenced by Albert Camus, film noir, soul legend Curtis Mayfield, and jazz greats like Miles Davis and George Gershwin, Art uses the album to explore life’s central contradictions; freedom vs. fate, belief vs. doubt, good vs. evil. The title track itself is a long-form dialogue between a believer and an existentialist, built not just as a song but as a scene. Rather than offering answers, it invites the listener to sit with uncertainty. As Art puts it, Serene Demon is a story about the demons we carry and the strange beauty of questioning everything.

Sonically, Serene Demon draws from the DNA of art rock and glam pioneers like David Bowie, T. Rex, Roxy Music, and Japan, each leaving a distinct mark on its sound and style. Echoes of Bowie’s Station to Station shape the album’s noir-inflected grandeur, while the swagger recalls T. Rex and the sleek, art-pop detachment nods to Roxy Music. Japan’s synth-laced melancholy threads through its more restrained moments. Together, these influences provide a framework for Art’s own evolving vision.

Serene Demon is a master class in how an artist channels his view of the world, hazy, layered, and unpredictable, and transforms it into a distinct musical space that’s entirely his own. The result is a record that’s vivid, theatrical, and totally cool.