EKKSTACY doesn’t want to hide anymore with new album misery

EKKSTACY as soon as couldn’t assist however hide. With his earlier album, 2021’s NEGATIVE, his voice was muffled and secondary. In the photographs surrounding the discharge, often rendered in black and white, locks of hair fell in entrance of his eyes. He even calls his debut extra related to a compilation, somewhat than a correct album. But now, the 20-year-old artist — who’s at the moment sitting backstage at Reeperbahn Festival in Hamburg, Germany repping a Title Fight tee and brief blond hair — is coming into his personal.

“Most of the songs I made that were on NEGATIVE, I could not really give a fuck about, to be honest. But now I’m stoked. Now, I’m proud of this stuff. If you had [talked to] me last year, I’d probably be telling you how my music sucks and how I’m gonna be quitting soon,” he says with amusing. That’s coming from an artist who creates heart-on-sleeve, ’80s-flecked indie rock constructed for the SoundCloud period, whose single “i walk this earth all by myself” racked up over 2 million streams on the platform.

Read extra: Why Wednesday Addams will at all times be a cult-favorite goth icon

Beyond any doubt, his newest album, misery, is a present of development for the breakout rock star. Across its 10 tracks, EKKSTACY makes stylistic selections that painting a transparent maturation, each within the influences that he pulls from (The Drums, Misfits, Christian Death) and the quantity of confidence he shows on report. Even although EKKSTACY means that he “just got lucky,” you may inform it’s greater than that. It’s his enthusiasm for his craft and all of the music that he wasn’t alive to witness.

While NEGATIVE felt markedly uncooked and darkish, misery leans even additional into the realms of post-punk and goth rock. The tracks are draped in an ashen melancholy that talk on dread, demise and love, channeling the graveyard stomp of Joy Division and Bauhaus. But whereas EKKSTACY embraces the darkness, his new music casts a contagious spell. There’s an unquestionable pop sense that enlivens the tracks, with EKKSTACY projecting his voice greater than ever in hooks that’ll make you lose your self within the music. Death looms, however there’s at all times time to dance.

“That’s what Misfits did for punk,” he factors out. “They were making punk, but in the most pop way you could do it because of the melodies.”

EKKSTACY additionally reveled in familiarity by tapping producer MANGET$U, a longtime collaborator who he labored with on NEGATIVE. For two weeks, the pair toiled away in his Vancouver storage recording all the pieces themselves on a makeshift setup, which principally consisted of numerous pedals, three guitars and a damaged laptop. “Everything sucked, but that’s because I like making [music] on trashy setups. I could go get a bunch of crazy shit, but I don’t want to. Takes away from it, I think,” he says.

Discovering the tone that colours “christian death,” a music titled after the ’80s goth-rock band of the identical title, marked the turning level. Over a distorted guitar line that sounds prefer it’s careening towards a wall, EKKSTACY wails about how he needs to finish all of it. A day or two into the recording course of, MANGET$U was messing round with the pedal knobs till he landed on a specific mixture. As quickly as EKKSTACY heard the tone, which is a mix of two completely different pedals, he “lost [his] shit.” It’s a minimize that gave them construction and a template to observe. The duo then went to work making a “whole album based around that one feeling.” 

The course of of constructing misery, he admits, made him fall in love with music once more. Prior to creating the report, the recording artist didn’t just like the songs he was creating and began to really feel dejected, regardless of solely starting his profession a number of years in the past. “I’m an extremist,” he says. “When something’s not good, it’s terrible, and when something’s good, it’s amazing. So I probably thought things were worse than they were, but I’m stoked [now].”

[Photo by Jordan Knight]

It’s that duality that makes his music so fascinating. EKKSTACY balances blunt, revelatory lyrics overtop an uptempo edge. The material ranges wherever from cursed romance (“i wish you were pretty on the inside”) and considering his personal fame (“i just want to hide my face”) to unhappiness and self-destruction (“​i want to sleep for 1000 years”). It all coalesces right into a swirl of agony, propulsion and melodicism that thrives stay. He even admits that “christian death” is an excessive music “because the hook is so fucked up.”

“Everyone feels like that at some point, and it’s not [meant] to be taken so literally, either,” he muses. “Most people my age — when even the slightest thing goes wrong — they’re like, ‘Ah fuck, I wanna die.’ I’m not saying that’s what that song’s about, but a lot of people are desensitized to mostly everything at this point.”

He’s spot on. In a world inundated by doom-scrolling, unbearable politics and normal ennui, it’s straightforward to give into apathy and tune out statements that will’ve turned heads a decade in the past. EKKSTACY, although, refuses to launch something however songs which can be utterly unfiltered.

“I don’t get stoked off other people saying that the song’s good, and I really don’t care when people say my songs suck. [The music’s] the one thing I’m not insecure about anymore,” he says.

Going ahead, EKKSTACY is under no circumstances letting go of the chaos. “The next album is gonna be a shit show, which I’m excited for,” he says. The indie star is getting pulled right into a sound test on the German competition, however earlier than he logs off, he reveals desires of collaborating with artists like Surf Curse and Joji (“I’m definitely a little bit in love with him,” he gushes, laughing). Plus, he plans on dipping even additional into his goth influences for the subsequent report, which may imply something from getting heavier on synth to performing a séance onstage. It’s the mark of an artist who’s come out of his shell, stepping boldly towards his future.