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I came across Crux‘ music back in December, probably very randomly thanks to this Soundcloud‘s clever Related tracks feature. It was a slow and sultry R&B song conveniently called All It Takes and it was indeed enough to convince me to discuss and investigate a bit more about this artist whose name reminded me of a Harry Potter’s artefact.
Currently doing two degrees in physics and philosophy at the moment, the Canadian sorcerer hides little fragments of his soul in his music whenever he gets some free time. “Combining all of my interests with school can be pretty nuts, but I still try to make time for everything that I enjoy, he admits to Urban Soul. There’s definitely some hair pulling as a result of this sometimes, but I usually end up making it work somehow.”
Music actually comes quite naturally for Crux who fell in love with it when he started playing classical violin as a child. “It really opened up my eyes to a completely separate world of expression. I found it fascinating how music even without words could tell such a profound story. Even though I didn’t understand it in a really tangible way, I wanted to learn as much as I could about it”, he explains. And after spending the day being taught how to be rational, the young man finally lets his heart take over. “I like to relax before I go to sleep most nights by just messing around on the piano. Usually it turns into nothing, but once in a while I’ll discover something that sounds really cool to me, and I’ll try to quickly record a couple different parts and write some lyrics for it. After that, I just leave it for a couple days, so I can come back to it with a fresh ear to discern if it actually has potential or not. If I like it, that’s when I really try to flesh it out, the singer-songwriter-producer tells about his creative process. The second time around I usually finish arranging the piece, and then writing all of the lyrics. I do have a book I write lyrics down in and various hooks I’d think that would sound cool, but honestly it usually goes melody first, lyrics second. The lyrics come from the story that the melody feels like it is telling. This is definitely the fastest part.”
Out of this passion came a debut EP, Exodus, released on April 23. Combining his bewitching poetry with a dark electro-rnb production, Crux definitely seems to be on the right path, immortalizing his life and feelings into love metaphors. “Exodus is mainly about finding hope in alienation and loneliness. The world we live in is such a fast moving place – I think myself along with most people my age can have a difficult time finding our place in it. It’s easy to feel isolated, but it’s such an important part of growing up to find our way through that, and find our own source of hope and inspiration in life. Many of my songs are written from the perspective of a lover, but most of my songs aren’t even about romance or another person at all. I just think romance can be a fantastic metaphor for the general ups and downs in life”, says Crux, hoping people will enjoy the music and connect with it for their own reasons, even if the latter are totally polar to his intentions. And trust me on this: the guy has more than one trick up his sleeve!
