By DCist Contributor Sung Min Kim

Twenty-year-old Maryland native Corbett Blair takes the moniker DÉVÅZ to produce experimental electronic music. Blair, currently a junior at the University of Maryland College Park, is a classically-trained pianist who uses his songwriting skills to produce airy, darkly atmospheric tracks to express something that he admits is still uncomfortable to discuss: his five-year-long battle with clinical depression.

“It’s almost therapeutic in a way for me to make music,” Blair said. “My good friend told me “music starts where word stops.” It can be therapeutic to talk to someone, but what about the things that you can’t put into words? That’s where my music comes in.”

Blair’s first release as DÉVÅZ came in May. He completed the Narcissist EP for a capstone assignment and ended up posting the entire product on his SoundCloud page. He recalled his professor’s instruction: “Okay, you have a deadline and you have to perfect these songs as much as you can, even if you are not satisfied.” But by the deadline, he was confident in the finished product.

Narcissist EP features seven songs. In the product, you can hear Blair’s penchant for sonic darkness, different textures, vocal sampling and beats with grooves that channel EDM, while avoiding tropes and cliches.

At this moment, Blair is working on his first full-length LP, which is tentatively titled Euphoria. Blair explained that each song will be named after different prescription pills he was prescribed over the years. Here is a track “125 mg Zoloft.” A piano melody dances faintly in the background while the beat pulsates through layers of vocal samples and a breathing synth. The song is alive.

DÉVÅZ will bring his act to the 9:30 Club backbar on Friday, November 6.