Adam Giles Levy: Deliri(um) is Reality
- Oliver Blakemore
- 6 days ago
- 4 min read
I love it when I get to listen to cool music, build a web of interpretation about it for myself in the form of an intricate cobweb-castle-waking-dream, and then talk to the artist about it. If you do it right, i.e., with enough emotional elasticity, it feels like they come into your dream and help you understand it better. Because art is a relationship. Their intent doesn’t negate my secret experience—it might force changes on it, but it’s still my secret experience.
In light of that…
I just had a conversation with a name you will be more familiar with soon, Adam Giles Levy, about his upcoming EP, Deliri(um).
Deliri(um) is a “grab your hand and make you dance”, wailing out of the back of a hole-in-the-wall pub, time-capsule of melodic and “turn that one up” plain and simple rock and roll. It’s strong musicianship holding together tracks that just tear along, loud and harsh and tonally layered, that just make you want to move and get another beer.
And also, its four tracks about the intricacy of the eternal moment. Which is a precise set of words that I learned at seminary before getting kicked out, and they tell you very little about the rock and roll. But the rock and roll is strong with this one.
Sneak Peek into songs in a yet unreleased EP
Deliri(um) has four epic songs:
“Dopamine” talks about the melancholic hunt for the energy to survive the only reality available to any of us: the present. It’s a story of that moment told from the perspective of the Summer singing an elegiac love song to the “caleidoscope of cosmic colors” that the Spring gives.
“Magnificent Chaos” takes a hard stare at the fragile necessity of walking into the future and shrugging off the heaviness of winter, and accepting the “magnificent chaos—irredescent” of the inevitability of growth.
“Momentary Utopia” engages with the “rabbit hole” of the sensual memories of someone who seems to be lost. Or maybe they just walked out of the room. That’s a shocking heartbreak in itself. And the song feels like giving fully into the possibly dangerous momentary high of remembered and lost joy.
“Infinity” crystalizes this sense of touching eternity by fixating on the only access to eternity any of us has: the present. There’s almost a confrontational sense to the song. It feels like knowledge that the utter monstrosity of infinity surrounds every single moment, and the only defense any of us grains of sand has against being overwhelmed by that wave is a deep focus on the material reality of the single moment we live in. And yet, at the same time, that’s a trap, because as we grow more full in awareness of the intricacy of our own moment, we discover ever greater awareness of the cosmic moment.
And there were some sick kick drums somewhere in there.
The Artist Himself
To be clear, the cerebral carrying-on is all me. Adam himself is a clear-spoken person as interested in strong community as anything else.
For a conversation starting with an EP called Deliri(um), we spent a lot of time talking about reality. Adam struck me as the sort of person who could have waxed philosophical with me for hours, but we talked about gigging and production instead.
Adam is the sort of journeyman musician who likes the entire process of production. From brainstorming non-verbals to humming snatched melodies and assembling lyrics to studio time to creating jacket art.
Every stage of chipping meaning out of feeling keeps his attention. Whether or not he’s good at it is answered by the work itself.
His body of work is out there and consistently strong. Even in the light of that, I think this to-be-released EP, Deliri(um), showcases a strengthening of what he already did with effectiveness. His voice is still the feral, emotive clash against the senses. And the songwriting is, if anything, more musically interesting with more precise layers of sound, without any deviation from the plain old rock and roll vibes of his previous work.
This evolution in sound reflects a turn toward a more evolved collaboration than previous tracks. Find him and ask him about that. Ask him why he called the EP Deliri(um) and what it says about his attitude toward community.
It sounds like a cool approach, and it ties these tracks at every level with what I always like to hear from artists who make music I really want to see live.
Adam told me that, even though he likes the whole process, he sees these songs as not quite “real” until they’re performed. Because their ultimate purpose is that moment of a room full of people living into the same vibe. The reason he writes music is as part of the tool for creating these shared moments of intimacy, where strangers can leave their loneliness behind even if it’s just for an hour.
He’s been flogging these new songs around as a sort of troubadour, just him and his guitar. You may have already heard their nascent forms at the back of a bar somewhere. When he can, he’d like to take them out with a band, and let them loose in their full-fledged-forms.
Coming soon to a venue near you. Because that’s the dream, right? Sinking into deeper levels of reality through a shared delirium.
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