In December 2020, Jeddah-based artist, EON, released his debut song, one that would go on to rack-up 32K views on YouTube and just above 12K on Anghami. A fair return at best for a debuting act in a country whose music scene is still very much an unknown beast to most, with a niche-leaning brand of indie electro-hip-hop. One might consider it a hard sell in this regional climate of music. Yet, there was something inviting in ‘Again’, the debut song in question, and its melancholic skip, something that lent it to a wider audience.
Fast forward seven months and the prophecy has been fulfilled, with EON’s second release, ‘Precious Nightmare’, swimming in over 331K plays on Anghami, all racked-up in the first week of its release. If melancholy defined ‘Again’, then this single - released on Saudi label, Wall of Sound - is painted more with a sinister brush in its visceral, marching beat, as eighties-inspired synths find their way into a sonic ensemble that can best be described as some kind of retrofuturistic fusion ballad of R&B and synthwave.The lyrics tell some kind of enigmatic story of love and heartbreak, obsession and confession, inviting you to wrestle with the meaning, all the while maintaining enough ambiguity for nebulous interpretation.
What now for EON? 331K streams in one week on one platform does not, of course, guarantee anything, but it does hint at the potential for EON to tap into something in the GCC audience, if not even further regionally. With 'Precious Nightmare' coming as a preview of upvoming album, Forever, time will tell.
