As the electronic dance music (EDM) explosion continues to gather steam, some artists are trying to create their own style, even if they were never part of electronica before.

SONOIO, better known as Alessandro Cortini from the industrial metal band Nine Inch Nails, recently released a new song onto his website, sonoio.org. Cortini first started to write his own material in 2010, two years after splitting from Nine Inch Nails in 2008. Cortini has released four albums, SONOIO Blue, SONOIO Red, NON Blue and NON Red. The NON albums contain remixes of the tracks on the self-titled albums. His sound is mainly categorized as synthpop and electronica. Cortini rejoined Nine Inch Nails in 2013, and since then has started writing material for a new SONOIO album.

The song “Thanks for Calling” was dropped on sonoio.org in mid-September, amid three years of no new material release. The song is also accompanied by a music video shown on the front page of the website. “Thanks for Calling” opens up with a mild beat accompanied with a swift and soft presence of synthpop. About 30 seconds into the song, the vocals ease their way into the song, almost as if they flow swiftly with the music, instead of cutting into the background music like most singers do. The background music very slowly begins to intensify, but the vocals remain calm. For the next two minutes, the music continues to intensify and swiftly moves into the climax of the song. Around the 3:15 mark, the calm and swift beat explodes into a more danceable track that anyone is sure to look favorably upon. The vocals continue to float above the track as the synthpop background changes to a mediocre, but enjoyable, track. The next two minutes are the most intense as the vocals begin to blend in with the background music. The song then abruptly ends after five exciting minutes.

Overall, the song, at first, seems as if it was not much more than a linear song with no “wow” factor. However, as the song progresses, the track explodes from what one might see as a dull, bland and disappointing track into an electrifying electronica and synthpop dance . The song contains a fresh, new sound in electronica music. It is very likely that this song may turn out to be SONOIO’s signature song.