Writing and producing your first EP isn’t the easiest – throw in several failed recordings, unreliable people, and a 2 year mental breakdown in there and things become a lot harder.
But finally, Anti Matter’s first EP, Pheonix is here!
Phoenix will be unleashed upon the world on Friday 28th June, and Anti Matter is celebrating the release with a show at UFO (Grey Lynn) in July.
ANTI MATTER
Pheonix EP Release Show
Friday 12th July | UFO | Auckland
Tickets will be available on the door for $10.
Press Release:
Lead single Fuckboi, a sarcastic song with a middle finger in the air took three recordings to get right, and two failed music video attempts. Pressure also had a failed video attempt. But solo electronic emo artist Anti Matter is keeping her spirits up.
Anti Matter describes the upcoming Phoenix EP as a testament to sticking to a project, and on a deeper level sticking with yourself and your mental illness.
Mostly written in 2015, Phoenix is an eclectic and experimental mix of songs detailing activist issues (Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is, Pressure), while empowering women (Heroine), and confronting emotions (Graves, Fuckboi, Phoenix).
The initial 2016 recordings went unreleased but in 2017 Anti Matter was picked up by local indie label Powertool Records. It was a great match, but unfortunately Anti Matter was hit with another hurdle, a severe bout of mental illness.
After several large life changes, finishing a degree, getting a new job, relationship breakdowns, Anti Matter began losing her resiliency. She said: “I just wasn’t coping with full-time work, a chaotic flat, and I had thought it was a good idea to come off antidepressants around that time too…” Then the crux of it, being put on a crisis team after a physical collapse at a music festival, and several hospitalizations for what she now knows was dissociation.
“Unfortunately, the dissociation was triggered by losing someone I had really been attached to, seeing them with someone else on social media. That was my brains final straw. Then it just started tapping out and dissociating.”
Doctors considered Adjustment Disorder and CPTSD but settled on Borderline Personality Disorder as a diagnosis. Being someone who has used songwriting as a coping mechanism for a while, Anti Matter used this intense time to write. She rewrote the title track Phoenix in the midst of a nervous breakdown, to reflect more accurately the emotional trauma of someone with Borderline Personality Disorder in a manipulative relationship.
Furthermore, the personality disorder inspired an array of new songs.
“I’m grateful to the illness in a way, because I feel like I have a trajectory as an artist now, the new songs that I will be releasing after this EP. The voice of these songs kept me alive during suicidal episodes, thinking, I just need to get this EP (Phoenix) and the next out. That really kept me going. Sitting, crying in my room at 4 am writing lyrics instead of succumbing to the most intense emotions I’ve ever felt.”
Fiercely, she spent the next 6 months taking on the EP’s video projects she had started with former friends. Learning from scratch how to make a music video on Premiere Pro. Then creating her own album art from a photo shoot she had done with music photographer Shelley Te Haara. The rest of the time was spent in intense therapy, learning to navigate the world again.
Fortunately a path of recovery lies ahead.
“I look forward to the future now. Managing my illness and releasing all the future songs I wrote about those experiences.”
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