Why Eyes Closed by STARNAMEDSUN Still Matters to the Lineage of Dark R&B
Toronto Producer Ana Buzdugan Folds Trip-Hop, Industrial Edges and French Lounge Into 30 Minutes
Eyes Closed opens with Overture, a 52-second curtain-raiser, and then spends half an hour working in the dark. STARNAMEDSUN, the Toronto project of producer and singer Ana Buzdugan, released Eyes Closed on 13 December 2024. It sits squarely in a lineage that runs from Bristol trip-hop to Toronto’s own after-hours R&B.
STARNAMEDSUN’s Chose Her sits in the playlist below, and the project’s coverage is collected on the STARNAMEDSUN artist profile. Eyes Closed came to BlackSounds.News through PopHits.Co Music Charts, which verifies independent artists and places their releases across its network of music news desks. Listen to it with the lights low, then keep reading for the lineage it belongs to.
From Bristol Trip-Hop to The Weeknd’s House of Balloons, the Dark R&B Template Lands Again in Toronto
Start with the wave. In the early 1990s, Bristol acts such as Massive Attack and Portishead slowed hip-hop beats down, wrapped them in samples and set unhurried vocals on top. Blue Lines in 1991 and Dummy in 1994 turned that recipe into what the press called trip-hop.
Two decades later, Toronto supplied the R&B sequel. The Weeknd released the mixtape House of Balloons in 2011, and it carried R&B into the small hours. The production was smoky, and the mood was closer to menace than romance. As a result, that record set the template for what came to be called alternative R&B.
Where STARNAMEDSUN Fits, From a 52-Second Overture to a French Lounge Song at the Close
On Eyes Closed, STARNAMEDSUN draws on both halves of that history. The album is filed as alternative indie R&B, alternative pop and trip-hop. Meanwhile, the STARNAMEDSUN website sorts its music under moods such as electronic, industrial and darkwave. Its featured-artist list also puts the project beside The Weeknd and Sevdaliza.
Turn & Work, writing in March 2025, heard the album as a sinister half hour and set it directly beside House of Balloons. The same review explains how the songs are built. Buzdugan often starts a track breathy and sultry over minimal backing, then stacks vocal layers as the tension climbs. The beat stays sparse, so the voice does the menacing.
Vines was the standout in that review, running on a slowed, playful piano figure the writer compared to a circus dirge. Chose Her, released as a single, caught the attention of the Philadelphia blog The Wild Is Calling. Its writer heard an abstract beat with a subtle industrial influence, held together by the vocal performance.
The album then closes on a turn nobody would predict from the opening. After Out(ro), a bonus track called je te verrais dans la rue is sung in French. Turn & Work likened it to a lounge act from Twin Peaks.
The numbers explain the urgency behind it. By early 2025, Turn & Work counted nearly 50 self-produced tracks released since February 2024. That run includes don’t listen to this, a 30-track debut from March 2024 built mostly on piano, guitar and voice. Eyes Closed is the tighter, darker follow-up: ten tracks in just under half an hour.
Sevdaliza, FKA twigs and The Weeknd Mark the Neighbourhood Where Eyes Closed Makes Its Case
The adjacent acts tell you where this record lives. Sevdaliza, the Iranian-Dutch singer on the STARNAMEDSUN featured list, built her 2017 debut album ISON on slow, trip-hop-weighted beats under a cool, close vocal. Eyes Closed shares that patience, letting a single voice carry the drama over very little.
FKA twigs is the second neighbour. The Wild Is Calling named her as a touchstone for STARNAMEDSUN, and her 2014 album LP1 paired a breathy vocal with skeletal electronic production. The same pairing runs through Eyes Closed, where the arrangements stay minimal until the vocal layers thicken.
Then there is The Weeknd, the local precedent. House of Balloons proved a mood could carry a whole record, and Eyes Closed takes the same bet in a smaller room. It also does something the Toronto template never did: it signs off in French, with a jazz-lounge closer.
Why Eyes Closed Still Matters Nearly Two Years On, and Who Should Press Play Tonight
Nearly two years on, Eyes Closed by STARNAMEDSUN matters because it shows how far the dark R&B template can travel. One self-producing artist in Toronto made a record that answers both Bristol and House of Balloons. Then, instead of repeating either, it ends somewhere neither would go.
The project has kept moving since. Another album, jawbreaker, followed in July 2025, alongside singles such as Fever Dream and August.
This album suits listeners who come to R&B for the late hours, and who like their trip-hop with sharp edges. If you return to Dummy, House of Balloons or LP1 when the lights go down, Eyes Closed belongs on the same shelf.
From the BlackSounds.News curator team: “Play Vines first, then Chose Her, then let the French closer run out. That order shows the whole range in ten minutes, from piano dirge to industrial pulse to a lounge song nobody saw coming.”
Follow STARNAMEDSUN
Stream Eyes Closed on Apple Music, and follow STARNAMEDSUN on Spotify and on the project’s Apple Music artist page. Watch the videos on YouTube, keep up on Instagram and Facebook, and explore the project’s music, photography and clothing on the official website.
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