Photos: Banoffee Releases New EP MUSCLES

Melbourne-born, LA-based artist, producer and DJ Banoffee has released their new EP Muscles. Written after a three-year break from releasing music, the project channels the freedom Banoffee found on LA's dancefloors into songs about anger, longing, love and finding a way back to yourself. The EP is the first project they have sung, written and produced in full themselves.

Muscles opens with its title track, born from political outrage and the hours Banoffee spent training for a boxing fight. A punchy bassline meets lyrics delivered with a wink, turning the urge to scream into an invitation to dance. From there, 'Ballet Flats' slips into a quieter, more complicated longing. Over juddering percussion and ghostly electronics, Banoffee envies the apparent ease of strangers whose lives seem to fit together. 'Ring' lets go of that self-consciousness entirely: a rush of love carried by sweeping synths and a bassline big enough to hold feelings that words can't quite manage.

That rush gives way to the EP's darkest moment on new cut 'Started Killing Again'. Its shimmering production and choir of airy vocals belie a song about depression, dysphoria and the temptation to disappear. Speaking on the track, Banoffee said:

''Started Killing Again' is about the temptation to disappear when being inside yourself becomes too loud. I wrote it from a place of depression, dysphoria and feeling estranged from my own body, where addiction starts to look less like destruction and more like relief. There's a seduction in becoming numb, in floating somewhere outside yourself where nothing can reach you. But you never really disappear alone. The people who love you are left holding the weight of your absence. The song lives in that contradiction: wanting to escape yourself, while knowing the escape has a body count.'

Written with Nina Jirachi and Nate Company, 'Get Yourself Off' returns to the dancefloor and the almost miraculous relief of hearing a song you love at exactly the right moment. Closing track 'Moth On My Mouth' lingers in the afterglow, all sugary vocals and sparkling synths before its textures begin to unravel. It feels like driving through LA after a night out, trying to make the feeling last a little longer.

From touring stadiums worldwide with Taylor Swift as part of Charli XCX's band to being described by FACT as one of pop's great forward thinkers, Banoffee has long carved out a space between pop and the underground. More recently, they're behind the cult club-night Loose, taking over underground venues across LA and beloved by the likes of HAIM, Billie Eilish, Hunter Schafer, Kaia Gerber and Empress Of.

Tracklist

Muscles

Ballet Flats

Ring

Started Killing Again

Get Yourself Off

Moth On My Mouth

Photo Credit: Haley Blavka

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