Yesterday (April 20), we received news of Avicii's sudden and untimely death. The news has devastated fellow DJs, artists, and fans around the world.
Back when Avicii released “Levels” in 2011, Geffen Records president Neil Jacobson worked with Avicii and continued to work with Avicii until his final days. But just before Avicii passed away, Jacobson had been talking about his forthcoming project with Avicii, Variety reports. “I’ve been really close with Tim and he’s been a great friend. He’s a great kid. I’m careful to not apply hyperbole here because it’s easy to do when somebody passes, but talk to anyone that knows him and [they’ll say] he was just a good, kind kid,” Jacobson said.
“We were working on it and it was his best music in years, honestly. And I know because I [A&R’d] all of his albums. He was so inspired. He was so psyched. We had done a month of grinder sessions,” said Jacobson. “We had to actually put end times on the sessions because Tim would just work for 16 hours straight, which was his nature. You had to pull him out. Like, ‘Tim, come on. Go to bed. Get some rest.' … It’s just a tragedy. We have this incredible, magical music.”
While he doesn't know what will happen to the next song, Jacobson said he's going to sit down and talk to the family once everybody has a chance to take a breath. “I’ve never actually had this happen with an artist I’ve worked with before and this closely. So, I don’t know. We’ll try to get some advice from the family and everybody’s going to put their heads together and try and do what we think Tim would want us to do.”
Jacobson went on to say that the album has a few features, although he'd rather not say who is on the list of features.
“Tim had a list of people he was hoping we could reach out to for this album. That was actually the last communication I had from him two days ago, and that’s haunting.”
Photo via Rukes
