Chances are that if you know the man behind santpoort, you know him under the name Julien Mier, the producer from the Netherlands that has given us amazing progressive electronic projects such as Industries in the Trees and Out of the Cloud. Two years ago, though, he debuted a new project under the name of santpoort, cloudstreet, an exploration about feeling lost in identity and disconnected from the world. He now follows that up with a companion album, the art of being empty.

Sometimes there are artists who create aliases, but the end result sounds pretty similar to the original project. Then there are projects like santpoort, who if I didn’t already know was Mier, I certainly wouldn’t have guessed it. That’s because the sound on the art of being empty is very distinct in comparison to a Julien Mier album. For santpoort, we’re getting something a lot more synth pop in nature, with just a little influence of progressive electronic music. On top of that, we are getting a lot more vocals on the project as well. Mier isn’t about to blow you away as a vocalist, but he’s got a nice high tone to his voice and he never tries to do too much beyond delivering a simple melody and some impactful lyrics to get you thinking. The album might be exploring themes of isolation and disconnection, but the music itself has a certain brightness and lightness to it, like you’re bouncing around the clouds while you’re listening to it. To that extent, the contrast between the brightness of the music and the darkness of the lyrics does remind me a bit of mid-‘00s Her Space Holiday. Overall, it’s an album that you can easily grow attached to, listening to it on headphones as you get inside your own head and work through your feelings.

the art of being empty is an interesting change of pace and a nice step forward for the new project known as santpoort. At first, it will catch you with some bouncy beats and catchy synth-driven melodies, but then you’ll be given all of these meditations on loneliness and society to work through as you’re nodding your head along to the album. It makes for an interesting project, to say the least.