Photos: Mx Lonely Release New EP PERFECT HOUSE via Julia's War

New York band MX LONELY have shared their new EP, PERFECT HOUSE, available now via Julia's War Recordings. PERFECT HOUSE contains four tracks of reworked demos that interlock to capture the tension that comes along with trying to keep it together when you're falling apart.

EP track 'Twenty Seconds' is available now, of which Jake says, 'I wrote 'Twenty Seconds' when I first moved to NYC in 2016. I was working as a postmate delivering food in Manhattan, feeling really detached and weird about the wealth divide in the city. I listened to 'Public Strain' by the band Women almost every day while I walked around, and got really inspired by the discordant guitar harmonies. 'Twenty Seconds' came out of my attempt to steal from that band, and then it got shelved for a long time. When we were going through songs to work on for the EP, I kept coming back to this demo because of how different and not 'alt-rawk' centric it sounded, just a different side of what MX does. I also feel like I've been hearing so much of Women's influence in bands lately – one of my favorite bands in Brooklyn, Wiring, does such a good job of incorporating that sound into their writing.'

PERFECT HOUSE features recent single 'Ex Rae Punk (feat. Caitlin Starr)' with vocalist/syntheist Rae Haas as the song's namesake, channeling breakup energy into a cathartic and pummeling track about the cyclical nature of meaningful relationships. They sing 'I'll look around for you' over riffs that build atop of each other, eventually reaching a layered maelstrom of guitars.

'March 16th (Feat. Caitlin Starr)' heralded the announcement of the new EP with an official music video directed by go-to collaborator Owen Lehman. Reflecting on a complicated relationship with sugar rush highs and destructive lows, the band reckons with reality as they sing 'We've been here before / We've gone alone / Now we're back for more / I'm on my own.' 'March 16th' explodes around its choruses, as harmonies reach total catharsis with vocals from Caitlin Starr. The video features an all-out party, complete with a black-and-white-clad mosh pit.

The band's debut album, ALL MONSTERS, arrived earlier this year via Julia's War Recordings. Channeling a heavy, murky alt-rock sound that blends cavernous guitars and soaring vocals with striking moments of beauty, the four-piece excavates past experiences to inform eight raucous songs. Across the record, the band confronts 'monsters' as symbols of trauma, addiction, neurodivergence, and self-doubt, turning shadow work into a cathartic act of survival and self-destruction of harmful beliefs. Self-recorded to capture the immediacy of their visceral live shows, the album was praised by Pitchfork, NPR Music, Alternative Press, Stereogum, Paste Magazine, and more.

Known for their memorable live performances, MX LONELY have built a following within the New York scene and toured with contemporaries like The World Is A Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid To Die, Trauma Ray, Cryogeyser, and Midrift. The band will perform an EP release show on October 8 at The Meadows in Brooklyn, NY with support from Taraneh, Interlay, and Warmachine. After the Brooklyn show, the band will embark on an expansive European tour, which includes stops at Pitchfork London and London Calling Festival.

MX LONELY LIVE 2026

October 8 – Brooklyn, NY – The Meadows

October 30 – Luxembourg, LUX – Les Rotondes

October 31 – Amsterdam, NL – London Calling Festival

November 1 – Tilburg, NL – Hall Of Fame

November 3 – Bordeaux, FR – La Maison

November 4 – Paris, FR – Point Ephemere

November 5 – Strasbourg, FR – La Grenze

November 7 – London, UK – Pitchfork Festival

November 9 – Bristol, UK – The Croft

November 10 – Dublin, IE – Bello Bar

November 12 – Glasgow, UK – Nice N Sleazy

November 13 – Manchester, UK – The Rat & Pigeon

November 14 – Leeds, UK – Headrow House

November 15 – Brighton, UK – The Hope & Ruin

November 16 – Athens, GR – Ilion Plus

About MX Lonely

In MX Lonely's world, monsters are multifaceted things. They're the creatures we used to imagine lurking in the shadows as children; the all-too-real evildoers who abuse their power or line their pockets with suffering; the vices and flaws that we grapple with throughout our lives, and what we can become while under their grip. Even the band's name comes from synthesist/vocalist Rae Haas' nickname for a shadowy figure that would haunt them during sleep paralysis. On their debut full-length album ALL MONSTERS, the Brooklyn-based band searched dark corners, forced open doors, and exhumed these monsters, via a heavy, murky alt-rock sound that's equally streaked with beauty. On their follow-up EP PERFECT HOUSE, the monsters move indoors. Where ALL MONSTERS searched dark corners, PERFECT HOUSE is a collection of love letters about a house burning down — something beautiful and intact from the outside, but filled inside with complicated emotions, ready to burst.

'In October last year we sat down in our basement studio and picked these four songs from a slew of demos made during the lifespan of MX,' the band says. 'Instead of rerecording, we used the demos as skeletons and started adding and subtracting new elements, shaping them into songs.'

Friends Caitlin Starr and Connor (of the band Wiring) came in to perform on a few tracks — it was during a session with Caitlin on harmonies for 'Ex Rae Punk' that the band wrote the melody and lyrics to 'March 16th' on the spot. Andy laid down drums in a few days without premeditated parts, just listening through and playing what felt right, while Gabe engineered and dialed in tones, giving the band their first real chance to use their own studio as an instrument, to learn the room and let it breathe. Rae and Jake layered vocals and additional sounds on top of what already existed in the demos. The EP took its name only after it was finished — up until then the group had been calling it B-Sides, unable to land on anything else, until the image of a perfect house, gorgeous from the street and quietly falling apart within, felt right.

The band members — Haas, guitarist Jake Harms, bassist Gabriel Garman, and Andrew Rapp — originally met while pursuing various musical projects of their own. Bonding over everything from Pixies, Elliott Smith and Weezer to Chat Pile, Show Me The Body and black midi, they began during the pandemic to work on songs that Harms had written as a solo project. First releasing the album Dog under the name v0idb0ys in 2020, they officially became MX LONELY in 2022, shortly before playing their first show. They continued with the EPs Cadonia in 2022 and SPIT in 2024, before ALL MONSTERS arrived as their debut full-length. Having built up their touring credentials over the last few years supporting the likes of The World Is A Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid To Die, The Dirty Nil, Cryogeyser and Midrift, MX LONELY aim to keep heading out on the road and building a community based on mutual catharsis. Their basement studio — the same one where PERFECT HOUSE took shape — is part of that plan: a way to remain in control of their own sound while inviting friends into that community.

About Julia's War Recordings

Julia's War Recordings is a community-based record label out of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, but serving the greater world as a whole. Founded by Douglas Dulgarian of They Are Gutting A Body of Water in 2021, the label aims to provide physical media for bands that rock, for people pushing the boundaries of music and creation in the modern day.

Photo Credit: Renee Newman [Download Hi-Res]