Casting a spotlight on ZZZAHARA; photographed by Amy Aivazian.

You need not be an avid observer of popular trends, periodical peruser or know-it-all to know that there are few things more powerful than the solo artist. History exalts the names of numerous canonized composers, torch song traders, vocalists of notoriety, folk scene legends, defectors from band group settings, fringe tape obsessives, bedroom 4-track operators and the list becomes infinite. These are the people who take their perceptions and experiences from our shared material world and shape them into something that feels new; illustrious arrangements of notes and applications of tones and primitively painted rhythms schematics that are different from anything that has been witnessed prior. These are the visionary artists that break out of the molds, bust up the conveyor belt built systems of broken patriarchal hegemony and create unexpected epics and aesthetics that are larger than life (often mirroring life) and made utilizing rudimentary principles of instrumental tools.

Highland Park artist ZZZAHARA has stirred up a buzz with a radical, raw and real minimal pop electric sound. The non-binary artist [known for playing guitar with Eyedress] captured attention beyond the Los Angeles undergrounds with the intense dream goth heart-ripper "Starry Eyed" that reflects on the life-death continuum, the nature of relationships and those beyond the grave. Featured on the anticipated SIMP WAVE EP debuted here in full; ZZZAHARA sets the listener on a four episode binge listen into the complexities of love, interpersonal connections, lifestyle blenders and benders, dating, codependency, lust, longing, toxicities, dramas, traumas and the otherworldly wiles of desire.

SIMP WAV is a high octane LGBTQ pop serial in four movements. The heightened sense of finding someone great rings in synth bells, bursts of electro euphoria and murmuring atmospheres of aesthetically pleasing distorted dissonance on "Spam Masubi Cigarette". ZZZAHARA lyrically opens up about those special people who get us to come out of our shells (and off the shelf) when we are blinded by life's lights; continuing the candid confessionals on the intimate and emotive vulnerable urgency of "Up on Fig". Clashes of compatibility drives the midnight mascara-streaked post-punk / no wave disco party of "Straight Crushes" that fantasizes dearly for someone in an imagined bond that ultimately could never work out. The single "Starry Eyed" closes out the record with a gut punch that reaches for those no longer on the earth that we know — while pining to escape the pains that come from our existence within the mortal coil. The EP shines in the ability to break beyond the mode of medium in a release that could be the soundtrack to its own Netflix series, the authorial narrative for a pulp novel, a young adult paperback or a queer positive graphic novel saga.

The azure glow of ZZZAHARA; photographed by Amy Aivazian.

ZZZAHARA provided an artist statement on the new EP

SIMP WAV is the first EP written and produced by me (ZZZAHARA). SIMP WAV is a whole vibe I tied together during quarantine with it’s ambient synths, synth horns, mellotron and heavily reverberated vocal melodies. I wanted to take the listener onto a somber and sweet adventure that involved; finding love during a pandemic, having an affair with a neighbor, crushing on a classmate and finally sharing my philosophical approach to a fluctuating life. SIMP WAV includes 4 songs; 9 minutes and 31 seconds of melodic dance music.

ZZZAHARAH, SIMP WAV is available now.

Watch the Joe Lammers-directed video for “Starry Eyed”:

PREMIERE | ZZZAHARA, 'SIMP WAV' EP