Adam Idris: “Count On Me” – the accessibility of purified emotion

Formerly known as Adamjlss, Adam Idris is musician and composer based in the United Kingdom. Almost a freshman to the scene, Idris started recording and making music seriously in 2016. Entrenched in the urban genres and blending R&B, Pop and Dance elements, the artist has a host of singles in circulation, including “Count on me”, “I’m incarcerated” and Power hungry”. The songs are by turn oblique, smolderingly direct, forlorn, funny, sad and gorgeous: a vertiginous marvel of digital-age urban pop. On the lead single, “Count On Me” Adam wraps his voice in woozy emotion and pivots in the space of just a few lines between lover-man braggadocios to caring mournfulness.

To release singles as spacious as these by Adam Idris takes confidence, and yet the deeper these tracks explored, the more it seems to be an acceptance of fragility. Adam trades the accessibility of his previous conventionalism for the accessibility of purified emotion.

The tracks are rich with influences and thoughts, and shaving them into a cohesive entities has been well done. As filtered through emotion as it is, the slow burning “Count On Me” feels thoroughly human, Adam’s voice driving like a nail between eeriness and romance.

There’s a focus on the vibe of lo-fi confessionalism on “I’m Incarcerated”, though the production is undoubtedly hi-fi. The song rings with a singular voice, as Adam gets more personal than ever without connecting all the dots.

It’s a track of synthesized interests without sampling, without stealing, without influence-as-copyright. He absorbs his influences, pours them through a strainer, and then filters that product once again. Adam Idris is more than his voice, and this track sees him illustrate all the ways in which he’s a true artist.

Adam’s melodies are more attuned to specific states of mind rather than grand pop gestures. The words are a constant swirl of observation that he conveys in a variety of ways, from bursts of confident hip-hop cadence to classic R&B belting and wandering introspection.

On “Power Hungry” he makes yet another powerful social statement. He is storytelling and constructing a world of events around the theme of being power hungry. The textures are so dense and frequently fascinating that the song scans as meticulously constructed.

What’s refreshing about these songs isn’t just how much ground it covers but the open heart and questioning it carries in doing so. In the drift of the music, from song to song, the only thing to hold on to is Adam Idris vocals, which can’t go unsung anymore. His high pitched voice, is the connective tissue between the projects – emotive, it surprises over and over in its versatility.