Eons Celebrate Newest EP Release at This Weekend’s Art Walk

Eons‘ latest EP marks a turning point in the Miami synth-pop duo’s career. “I think we raised the bar a little bit, and we were kind of more picky in particular on what songs were to make it onto the EP,” says Johnny Deezal (AKA Johnny D.). He along with his Eons partner, Matt Gossman (AKA Matt G.), feel they have reached a point of maturity both personally and musically with the upcoming EP, Serene Machine, out August 7.

“Your tastes naturally change, and I think you hear changes in the music as well from our first EP to this current EP — definitely because there’re different textures and more of a vibe that is going on now that wasn’t happening before,” says Johnny.

The upcoming release — mastered, mixed, and coproduced by Afrobeta’s Smurphio — explores the juxtaposition of human emotions and man-made technology and what happens to those emotions once they’re filtered through tools found in the studio. Serene Machine pushed Eons to explore and experiment like never before, using spoken word and Italian lyrics and layering and mixing more percussion and acoustic sounds with electronic synthesizers.

For Johnny, collaborating with Smurphio was simply a no-brainer. “He’s a really cool, modest guy, and his production is really good with Afrobeta. I’ve always admired that, so he was just a logical choice.” 

Johnny explains that it’s really hard not to sound repetitive given how music tends to recycle itself, especially electronic music.  

“You might hear some guitars that sound like Phoenix or vocoders that sound like Daft Punk, house beats that sound like Deadmau5, a saxophone that sounds like Sade and you mix those things together and it comes out to be Eons. I can’t really put a label to describe what sound that is, but whatever it is, it’s us, and we’re going to keep doing what we do and own it,” says Johnny.

For both Johnny D. and Matt G., electronic music is so much more than just EDM and trap music with “crappy lyrics.”

“The message that we’re trying to put out unto the world with this release is that this is what we do. This is who we are,” Johnny says. “The songs themselves, I believe, are a good representation of the band and also a good representation of music in general, and I hope people will see that.”

Eons will have a release party for Serene Machine on Saturday, August 8, at the Annex. A new music video for the song “Like a Dream” will be projected before the duo performs songs from the new EP as well as reworks of older material.

“It’s been a while since we played — about over six months — so we’re very excited, and we’re looking forward to seeing some familiar and new faces.” 

Serene Machine Release Party with Eons, Ray Milian, and Joshy Josh. 10 p.m. Saturday, August 8, at the Annex, 44 NE 29th St., Miami; 305-423-9969; theannexwynwood.com. Admission is free.