Sydney-based
pop producer & singer-songwriter Holliday Howe today releases
her hotly anticipated debut EP god in maine; alongside a new video
for the title track. Including previous singles never meant,scarz, kamakarmic, and 1
2 3 4 (i just want my stuff back), the project sees her traipse
through the wreckage of a doomed relationship; telling the “tale of two cities
- of L.A., of Sydney, of the hope of forever, and of the pain of never meant to
be.” Melding the hyperpop beats she is known for with the
trappings of classic midwest-emo, Holliday is carving a new niche
for herself in the global pop scene with her distinct 'hyperemo'
direction.
To
celebrate, Holliday has curated a live god in maine launch
party in Sydney at The Burdekin on Friday 13th October, with
an all-femme lineup of friends and collaborators - Cherry Chola,
Crescendoll, Eko Atari and Cass Lee.
Describing the
title track, Holliday says: “Long distance is tough. It’s tougher when your
partner goes on a 2 month road trip back home & isn’t as communicative.
It’s even tougher when your partner keeps telling you you’re paranoid for
wondering if they want to be with you anymore. I now know I am not built for long distance relationships. I wanted
to paint a picture of what it’s like to be gaslit, where the responsibility of
the relationship fell solely onto me. My ex had gone on this road trip to
rediscover his life’s purpose and I wanted to ask him if it was worth it. If he
really did find it in his lakeside cabin up in Maine." Holliday
Howe is Sydney’s finest cyber-hyper-popstar, producer and
songwriter. A graduate of Goldsmiths’ Bmus Pop Music course, Holliday spent
years drinking in the influences of London’s ultra-inventive club scene whilst
honing her own particular melancholic brand of hyperpop. Now back in her
hometown of Sydney and hot on the heels of her revelatory debut mixtape My Friends Live
In My Pocket, Holliday returns with a new musical & aesthetic twist on debut
EP god in maine.
The
heady bangers & shimmering sentimentality reflected on Holliday’s debut EP,
inspired by the likes of Charli XCX and PC Music,
blends seamlessly with the music bubbling under the surface of her childhood
memories: hints of The Postal Service, Bon Iver, and even
midwest-emo revivalists Brakence are present in her new
direction. Kicking her ‘hyperemo’ era off with a rousing cover of
an American Football classic - already garnering ardent praise
from the TikTok set - Holliday pays no heed to classic genre markers like hyperpop & glitchcore:
this is post-genre music for the post-internet age. Melding
twinkly midwest emo guitar riffs & garage breaks one
moment with ASMR glitch beats & distorted 808s the
next; Holliday’s fresh direction combines all the music she’s obsessed over for
the last 15 years in one glorious emotional burst - a sound
unique to Holliday, with her delicate production doing as much storytelling
heavy lifting as her lyrics. Appropriately for the artist with one of the
strongest claims to the hotly contested origin of the genre name ‘hyperpop’,
Holliday is again blazing her own path. Previous
tracks including Digital Affection and 2000 have
featured on triple j, FBi Radio playlist, Fresh Finds (Spotify), Music Feeds,
The Music, AU Review, AVYSS, Dummy; 20+ editorial playlists across Spotify,
Apple, TIDAL & Deezer (including the coveted Hyperpop playlist), and
Holliday has played shows in London, New York, L.A., Chicago, Austin, Sydney,
Brisbane & more. With the hyper-tide rising in Australia, Holliday is ready
to step into the spotlight. Elaborating
on the EP, Holliday says, “god in maine came about at the end of 2022 when I
was in the midst of a pretty bad breakup. The
whole “relationship” had began that spring when I was visiting LA. We made the
decision to be long distance with hopes that we could reunite in Europe later
that Summer but after 3 months in the US I was broke, back in London for the
first time since COVID and depressed. So
I moved back to Sydney. The
pacific ocean proved to be too vast a distance for us both. He kept promising
to visit but was voluntarily unemployed, so the prospect of him visiting got
weaker and weaker and so did my mental health. In
a last ditch effort to save whatever we had, I booked expensive last minute
flights to see him back in LA. 4 days before my departure date - we broke
up. Back
in Sydney, mourning the relationship and then a loss in my family, I just
poured myself into music. I write all the time but this was a new burst of
production that I hadn’t really had since 2014.
The
souvenir I got from that boy in LA was a newfound love of Midwest Emo, which I
began to listen to all the time as a weird kind of therapy. The heartbreak had
also rekindled my appreciation of Bon Iver's for emma, forever
ago and then right around the beginning stages of the breakup, brakence
released hypochondriac. I was so inspired by all these works and I just
wanted to create something even half as beautiful. These
songs are my first foray into this new sound for myself and a new chapter as an
artist. The EP, to me, tells the tale of two cities - of L.A., of
Sydney; of the hope of forever, and of the pain of never meant to
be.”
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