When artists say they’re taking their time to make a new album, they usually give it a year or two. For Zedd, whose last full-length was released in 2015, things took a bit longer. “It can definitely be a disadvantage to take too much time,” the producer tells Apple Music’s Zane Lowe of the nine-year gap between True Colors and Telos, his third LP. “But it really depends on what you’re trying to do. At some point I had to decide what this album was about. In 2020 or so, I started working on an album, but I had no idea of what I was actually doing. It was like, ‘Well, there’s a pandemic. When am I going to get another chance to sit down and make music?’ But I didn’t have real genuine inspiration, and I was aimlessly trying to make music without any context or real reason.” Only one track remained from those sessions, but it was enough to give shape to what would eventually become Telos (that’s Aristotelian for the end or the completion of a goal). “Dream Brother,” which centers around late singer-songwriter Jeff Buckley’s vocal stems from his 1994 track of the same name, “was the one song that to me was giving me that emotion that I wanted,” Zedd says. “[Buckley’s] ‘Dream Brother’ has always been inspirational to me. I’ve always thought that there’s a side of it that could live in a different context. I just thought I could make this into an incredible respectful dance-ish song.” “Dance-ish” is pretty key to understanding Telos, and Zedd’s entire approach to music after nearly a decade between albums. “There was this moment where I had to decide that this is an album for me,” he says. “That put everything in place. All the songs that I had started, where I was like, ‘How am I going to make [a] 7/8 [time signature] work in dance music?’ Well, it doesn’t matter. It’s no longer dance music. I’m making this for myself—not for the fans, not for the label, not for anybody. It’s just for me.” Unlike the beat-driven True Colors, here the drums are used for color, tone, and dynamics, flickering in for a few bars and fading out, trading places with synth, piano riffs, and Bea Miller’s vocals on the opening “Out of Time” and adding a punchy rhythmic component to the vaguely South Asian “Shanti.” Tracks such as “Sona,” his 7/8-time collaboration with Irish American trio the olllam, showcase an even greater commitment to writing songs, and make Telos a cohesive whole that asks its listeners to take their time, just like he did making it. “I can make a good song,” Zedd admits, “but 10 of them aren’t going to make a good album. I grew up with these albums that were more than just 10 good songs. They still inspire me, and they made me the musician I am today. I wanted to create something that was meaningful. I wanted to make an album that in 30 years, I will meet a kid who’s like, ‘I heard this album and I wanted to get into music.’”