It could be intimidating walking the popstar path from New Zealand to the world but 22 year-old Thomas Stoneman AKA. Thomston has taken it in his stride. Over the past few years, he’s walked and carved his own path, furthering the Kiwis impeccable reputation for left-centred pop music with his ever-expanding sound and profile.

In 2018, we’ve been introduced to a bolder, fearless Thomston. His first taste Acid Rain came two years after his debut album Topograph and was the sounds of him “letting go” with a soaring chorus over some of his most minimal production to date. His next taste The Heights is similarly liberating, going even bigger than its predecessor.

It’s is an elevating, weightless pop song that does away with fear. It comes after a “dark period” for Thomston but the track is not dark or sad. It’s surprisingly uplifting. 

“This song is just as much about ambition, fearlessness and strength as it is about self-doubt, anxiety, depression and the fear of failure,” he says.

“The Heights marks the point i was able to view the cynical, negative voice of self-doubt in me as a separate entity. i saw him as confused and uncertain, and in need of a friend and a pep talk, instead of a harsh/defensive response.”

That strive for positivity is celebrated on The Heights with a chorus that is anthemic in sound and self-assured lyrically. Thomston isn’t pretending that he has it all worked out but the song is a mission statement that he’s, in his words, going to “turn the curveballs into something productive.”

It’s another addition to a very promising era that he’s describing as the sound of being “self-assured and thriving”. Thomston says his first record, “sounded like letting yourself wallow in self-pity,” but this time around he’s embracing the cathartic nature of songwriting, a transformation that he’s been slowly working towards over the course of his short but celebrated career. 

From impressing blogs with an experimental EP he released for free in 2014, Thomston went onto hone in on his songwriting and craft effortlessly written pop songs. Over the next two years, he released two EPs Backbone and Argonaut which, millions of streams later, earned him a devoted fanbase and established him as more than just an internet favourite but an artist with legs to go global. And that he did.

His debut album Topograph was recorded over five cities in three continents. He kept that bedroom intimacy that he had delivered with his homegrown releases but went bigger. The choruses soared higher and his voice became larger, stamping Thomston as a necessary presence in the pop world. From the triumphant howls of Rocketfuel to the heart-on-the-sleeve duet with Wafia Window Seat, he has a unique ability to make intimacy either anthemic or contained. 

Topograph was not only sonically cohesive but he paired it with music videos and a trailer that took us into his head and process. Just a quick swipe through Thomston’s Instagram will show that his visual direction is just as strong as the music he’s making and these visual album works allowed him to explore that further. Taking the theme of topography, he paired landscape and emotion, detailing loneliness and love in both the biggest and most sparse cities in the world.