Agonised Too interview: ‘There are scratches somewhere inside’

Agonised Too‘s “EYE CRY” is structured around a refusal of extremes. Its artwork contains neither pure black nor pure white, and Bartosz Hervy describes the music in almost exactly the same terms: it remains close to black, occasionally approaches brightness, but always stops somewhere in the greys between them. That is more than an aesthetic decision. Across the record, vulnerability is rarely presented without some form of resistance, melody can offer access to difficult emotions while simultaneously threatening to make them too comfortable, and distance can function both as protection and as withdrawal.

It also makes “EYE CRY” a marked departure from “Summer Suffering”. Hervy describes the first album as a deliberate engagement with the 1980s and New Romanticism, including the familiar contradiction between brighter music and considerably sadder lyrical content. The releases that followed were already moving elsewhere, but “EYE CRY” makes that change explicit: colder, broader in its musical vocabulary and conceived as something fluid and almost trance-like, where individual sounds matter less as isolated details than as parts of a continuous emotional movement. Melody has not disappeared; Hervy now places melody and rhythm on equal footing, while deliberately working against sweetness through rougher textures, dynamic changes and arrangements continually rebuilt around Rafał Tomaszczuk’s voice.

That relationship between intimacy and scale became particularly clear at Castle Party, where the duo brought this material onto a much larger stage without inflating its emotional language. The arrangements became rawer and more physical, low frequencies gained weight, and Bartosz Hervy’s visual work expanded into something closer to an additional instrument than an illustration behind the musicians. At the same time, the chemistry between Hervy and Tomaszczuk remains grounded in a friendship of more than twenty years rather than in rigidly assigned stage roles.

I spoke with Bartosz Hervy and Rafał Tomaszczuk about the movement from “Summer Suffering” towards “EYE CRY”, why difficult emotions do not require melodrama, melody as both an invitation and a risk, creating music around a voice rather than placing a voice over finished music, the visual architecture of Agonised Too, and the quieter, more cinematic territory the project may explore next.

Agonised Too interview

Karo: When I reviewed “Summer Suffering”, the music placed emotional unease inside an almost luminous, immediately melodic form. “Lurking Fear” already suggested a darker psychological space, while “EYE CRY” feels colder, more severe and more willing to disturb its own beauty. Did you recognise this progression while it was happening, or did each release reveal the direction only after it had been completed?

Bartosz: First of all, I would like to point out that our first album, “Summer Suffering”, was a tribute to the 1980s, New Romanticism and the bands we listened to and grew up with as kids. It had a self-contained form that was meant to be based on what had been created in music back in the ’80s. It is well known that songs from that era were often ambiguous: the music was frequently sunnier and brighter while accompanied by sad, reflective lyrics. We tried to make use of that on our first album as well. However, our first EP from 2022, the subsequent singles and the singles released after “Summer Suffering” were already outlining the path we wanted to take. This direction is more musically open, definitely darker and utilises a broader set of expressive tools. With “EYE CRY”, it was also very important to us that the album felt trance-like, fluid, told a musical story and made you feel that every single sound had its proper place.

Karo: “EYE CRY” is an emotionally intense title, and in less disciplined hands it could easily lead towards melodrama. The album avoids that through restraint, detail and a certain emotional intelligence. How did you decide which feelings should be spoken directly and which needed to remain concealed inside the arrangements?

Bartosz: I think it came naturally. It wasn’t like we intentionally wanted to hide anything. At least from my side, all the feelings I had while composing the music were poured out immediately. However, I don’t like overly literal forms that directly expose our vulnerability or the topic we want to talk about. I think “EYE CRY” is also a slightly playful title. On the album sleeve, it is written as “EYE” “CRY”, something that is more visual, something you can see, not just hear or feel. But already by the third track, which is the title track, the name changes to “I Cry”, which is much more direct. These feelings might seem subdued because this album is not based on extremes. On a continuous spectrum, it sits somewhere close to black, but it is still a dark grey, a graphite. Sometimes it approaches brightness, almost white, but it is always an off-white or a light grey.

Rafał: For many years now, Bartosz and I have been creating, together or separately, music and content brimming with emotions. These are usually difficult emotions, which we sometimes cannot name or define, yet they are so deeply rooted within us that we feel the only way out and the only salvation is to translate them into a musical or verbal message. Perhaps it is precisely because they are genuine and organic that they protect us from falling into cheap and unnatural dramas. Furthermore, having learnt from experience, we know when not to take the next step that would risk entering the “forbidden zone”, that is, resorting to cheap tricks designed to draw listeners’ attention to our emotions in an almost primitive way. We know full well that our listeners are intelligent and won’t fall for it. 🙂 That’s why we try to stay alert and keep our finger on the pulse. Being natural and conveying genuine emotions gives us, to some extent, a guarantee that we won’t fall into our own trap.

Karo: Rafał, the lyrics examine coping, withdrawal and the need to create distance from a world that can be terrifying and beautiful within the same moment. Is that distance presented as protection, or does the album also recognise the point at which self-protection becomes another form of isolation?

Rafał: Keeping my distance from myself and the world in general is, alongside music, one of the most effective tools I have to protect myself. I’m no preacher; I don’t give advice on how to deal with emotions because I simply don’t know. However, by sharing what I feel, what’s inside me, I might help someone find common ground with me, and perhaps then they’ll feel a little better, perhaps they’ll understand something, feel something, or even find an answer to the issues troubling them. That’s why I find it so difficult to talk about my lyrics, and I don’t want to interpret them in my own way, as that would rob listeners of the chance to find their own meaning in them. Let everyone “play” with them according to their own rules, using their own key.

Karo: The cover refuses a simple black-and-white division, and the music behaves similarly: tenderness can sit beside discomfort, while melodic clarity often carries something far less stable underneath. How important was it to leave these contradictions unresolved rather than guide the listener towards one definitive emotional interpretation?

Bartosz: The album consists of shades of grey, and the cover itself, interestingly enough, is not black and white; neither pure white nor pure black was used there. It uses shades of grey that lie in between. This cover was meant to repel. If you were to compare it to feelings, at first you want to push away those heavy emotions. People who feel bad, who experience discomfort, are not always seen as welcome company. People prefer those who are smiling and cheerful, yet these problems exist within all of us. Often, people who seem smiling and very friendly on the surface are hiding something inside. We live in very anxious, overstimulated times, and many people feel this discomfort inside while not showing it on the outside. On the cover, we showed a greater level of discomfort than what you actually experience while listening to the album. For me, as the creator of the graphic design and the band’s visual materials, this was a complete counterweight to the cover of “Summer Suffering”, which was almost glamour: yellow with a black, disco-ball-style heart. Here, we wanted to go in a completely different direction. The cover looks as if someone has already damaged it. People say it looks worn out, but it’s simply a graphic meant to signify that there are scratches somewhere inside and we need to pay attention to them.

Karo: Melody remains fundamental to Agonised Too, even as the production on “EYE CRY” becomes colder and more experimental. How do you recognise the point at which melody gives the listener necessary access to a difficult emotion, and the point at which it might make that emotion too attractive or too easy to consume?

Bartosz: I know that Rafał is a huge fan of melody. I am too. The older I get, the more I believe that melody is the foundation of music, alongside rhythm. There was a time when rhythm was more important to me, but now melody and rhythm stand on equal footing. I try to balance it so as not to make the album too “sugary”, which I personally couldn’t identify with, because I always prefer rougher content and blending contrasts. Dynamic, almost cinematic changes have always been crucial to me. I tried to make sure everything had its place: the vocals and lyrics had to be clear, sometimes enhanced with audio effects. There is a lot of melody in the vocals, so you have to tread lightly to avoid oversweetening it. On the other hand, the rhythm is meant to be trance-like. I like trance, I like how songs flow and change while still forming an integral whole.

Rafał: What Bartosz says is very important. Generally speaking, we’re all looking in the same direction, but each of us sees things through a different lens. Perhaps that is precisely where the key to our “success” lies.

Karo: Bartosz, the album contains considerable sonic detail, yet it rarely feels crowded. There is pressure, but also carefully protected space around Rafał’s voice. How do you construct that balance? Do you begin by building the electronic environment, or by identifying the emotional space the vocal needs in order to remain exposed?

Bartosz: We create in a rather interesting way. Rafał gets initial outlines of the tracks to familiarise himself with them, then he writes the lyrics and sings. At the same time, I keep working on the backing track, so a second or third version of the music is often created before the demo vocals are even recorded. However, once the actual vocals arrive, I write and rebuild the music directly around them so that everything forms a unity. The point is for the vocals not to feel like an element just glued onto a finished backing track, but for the whole thing to sound like a single, organic organism.

Karo: Your Castle Party performance was splendid because the intimacy of “EYE CRY” survived the scale of the Castle Stage. The low frequencies became more physical, Rafał’s delivery carried much farther, and the material seemed larger without becoming emotionally inflated. What did you change in the arrangements or performance to make these songs inhabit such a large open space?

Bartosz: I always try to prepare the arrangement slightly differently for live performances compared to the album. An album follows its own rules: frequencies must be balanced so that it is pleasant to listen to repeatedly without fatigue. Live, aside from the fact that we play part of the material live and the vocals are live, I like to boost the low frequencies and bring out elements that are subtler on the album. I like to push certain instruments to the front and hide others. I simplify the arrangement a bit, but I make it rawer and more emotional, so that it overwhelms the listener in a very positive sense, making them feel the music not just with their ears, but with their entire body.

Rafał: Thank you for your kind words about our performance. 🙂 As Bartosz says, each of our gigs is slightly different. I won’t hide the fact that before the Castle Party gig I had some concerns, which I mentioned to Bartosz. They were about the size of the stage and whether we’d feel “isolated” on it as a duo. It’s hard for just the two of us to fill that space in a way that holds the audience’s attention. Fortunately, my concerns turned out to be unfounded because, thanks to Bartek’s brilliant visuals and the chemistry we share during our performances, we were able to fill that space on our own terms.

Karo: Bartosz, the Castle Party visualisations were among the most precisely integrated I saw during the festival. They did not illustrate the lyrics literally; at times they followed the music, while elsewhere they seemed to resist it through delay, distortion or disappearance. Did you design them as a parallel narrative, an emotional counterpoint, or as another instrument within the performance?

Bartosz: Visualisations are another instrument in our performance and an integral part of who we are. We always play with them. Since I do this professionally, creating and editing video, it was natural to incorporate this element into Agonised Too. I always say that I simply think in images. When I listen to music or when Rafał and I discuss a new track, I see images in my head first, and only then comes the sound. So, the visualisations are another layer of the show for us. Some of them are reworked music videos, while others were created exclusively for the live set. I want the audience to get that “third factor”. At Castle Party, we had incredible opportunities. Seeing these videos on such a massive screen amplified the emotions. Watching the concert footage afterwards, I thought to myself: “Cool, that’s exactly what I wanted, that’s how it was supposed to look.”

Karo: Onstage, Rafał appears to carry the vulnerable human centre of the material, while Bartosz controls the electronic and visual architecture surrounding him. How carefully is that relationship constructed, and how much freedom remains for one of you to alter the emotional direction of a song during the performance?

Bartosz: This relationship stems from the fact that Rafał and I have known each other for over 20 years and we are friends. We talk practically every day. The distance, the fact that I live between Gdańsk and Poznań, and Rafał lives in Białystok, has absolutely no impact on the emotions in our music. Onstage, we want to be integrated, but each of us retains our own personality. Nothing is artificially staged or forced; we don’t have rigid expectations of each other. In electronic music, where there are only two people on stage, authenticity is paramount. We simply rely on natural energy, and that complements us well.

Rafał: You’ve put it perfectly. Bartosz and I work instinctively, fitting the pieces of the whole together seamlessly. It’s a sort of instinct that allows us to tune our radars to the same frequency. This gives us a freedom that, in turn, translates into the studio and live quality of our music. Of course, our long-standing friendship, which Bartosz mentioned, helps us a great deal in this!

Karo: After “Summer Suffering”, “Lurking Fear”, “EYE CRY” and the experience of bringing this material to Castle Party, which part of the Agonised Too language now feels fully explored, and which element still seems unfinished, something you have discovered but have not yet pushed far enough?

Bartosz: In the future, I would like us to dive even deeper into highly emotional and atmospheric tracks. Electronic music doesn’t always have to rely on a fast, danceable rhythm; there is immense power in spirituality and apparent delicacy. An example of this direction is “Fire Has Seen It All”. It is probably our least “concert-ready” track. We haven’t played it live yet, but to me, it is the most cinematic, visual and emotionally raw piece we have ever recorded. Further exploring this cinematic, deep side of Agonised Too is definitely something I want to develop on future releases.

Rafał: For my part, I’ve been feeling comfortable and at ease lately with dance- and beat-driven music, which are, of course, united by a good melody, so I think our current artistic directions and visions will lead us to something unique, fresh and, most importantly, sincere in its message.

About Agonised Too

Agonised Too are a Polish electronic duo consisting of Bartosz Hervy and Rafał Tomaszczuk. Hervy is responsible for the project’s music, production and visual identity, while Tomaszczuk writes the lyrics and provides vocals. Their collaboration also rests on a friendship extending for more than twenty years, despite the musicians currently living in different parts of Poland.

The project’s first material appeared in 2022 with the “First Track” EP on 21 December, followed by the “Type Zero” EP on 21 March 2023, both mixed and produced by Hervy at ROOM XII. The duo came out of Agonised By Love. Their first full-length album, “Summer Suffering”, released on 20 June 2024, established an aesthetic deliberately informed by the 1980s and New Romanticism, and closed on a cover of Army of Lovers’ “Obsession”. Hervy describes that record as a self-contained tribute to music the musicians had grown up with, including the characteristic contradiction between bright, melodic arrangements and reflective or melancholic lyrics. Subsequent material gradually moved towards a broader and considerably darker electronic vocabulary, through the single “The Same” on 6 August 2025 and “Safer/Stronger” on 6 June 2026.

Their second album, “EYE CRY”, released on 26 June 2026, develops that change much further. Rather than relying on constant extremes, the record was conceived around gradations and contrasts: darker production, trance-like rhythmic movement, melody balanced against rougher textures and carefully protected space around Tomaszczuk’s voice. Its seven tracks are “Negative Space”, “Lurking Fear”, “I Cry”, “Fire Has Seen It All”, “Are You Afraid Of Tomorrow?”, “Safer/Stronger” and “The Same”. Hervy also created the album’s graphic identity, deliberately rejecting pure black and white in favour of damaged surfaces and shades of grey.

Visual work is integral to Agonised Too rather than an accompaniment added to the music later. Hervy works professionally with video and describes himself as thinking in images, with some concert visualisations derived from music videos and others created specifically for performances. The duo treat this imagery as a “third factor” alongside sound and performance.

Their Castle Party appearance on 19 July 2026, on the Castle Stage at Bolków Castle, demonstrated how that audiovisual approach can expand to a major outdoor stage. Hervy altered the arrangements by emphasising low frequencies, simplifying certain components and bringing previously subtle elements forward, while Tomaszczuk’s initial concern about whether two performers could occupy such a large stage was ultimately answered by the combination of their chemistry and the scale of the visual production.

The next direction may emerge from an interesting tension already visible between the two musicians. Hervy wants to push further into cinematic, atmospheric and emotionally exposed material, naming “Fire Has Seen It All” as the deepest example of that side of Agonised Too so far, while Tomaszczuk currently feels especially drawn towards dance- and beat-driven music anchored by strong melody. Rather than pointing towards two contradictory futures, those instincts may simply extend the method already at work on “EYE CRY”: allowing different emotional and musical states to coexist without forcing them into a single colour.