With pomaded hair and a trench coat draped over his narrow shoulders, Adam Byczkowski aka Better Person is a promising candidate for senior class president at the school of new emotionalism. The Poland-born Berliner calls on 80s synthesizers and distorted drum machines to drench his youthful romanticism in style and revel in fragile emotional territory. The neo-dandy’s springtime melancholia is so impeccable, his vulnerabilities so blissfully enraptured, that we might assume irony plays at least a minor role in the whole affair. But who are we to say?—perhaps that’s exactly how it feels to find yourself in a spartan room on Pannierstraße at sunrise after a long night of transitory candle-lit bars and acquaintances. The Sean Nicholas Savage protegé delivered a bona fide internet hit with “Wake Up Tired”, and his first collection of songs, “It’s Only You”, appeared recently on the Berlin label Mansions & Millions. Byczkowski’s pieces of musical equipment are dreamcatchers in his bedroom, also soaking in all of waking life’s big feelings. That trademark Neukölln DIY stands firmly behind the singer’s seemingly untouchable facade, and contradictions like these are the most fascinating thing about the project: so young/so sensitive. So handsome/so lonely. This homemade glamour is as modest as it is larger-than-life, blurring the internet-controlled lines between appearing and really being. Which is the better person? All that I have is a sentiment.

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