Today, the chameleonic polymath Abyss X announces her much-anticipated second album Freedom Doll, to be released on September 8 via London-based label AD 93. Alongside the announcement, she shares the new single ‘Banyana’, building from a soporific twinkle to an operatic crescendo the track slinks between ethereal grunge and hypnotic psychedelic rock calling to mind 90s favourites like Garbage, Hole, Sonic Youth and The Cocteau Twins.
Inspired by an old knotted Banyan tree the artist came across during a recording residency in Mexico, its intricate formations appeared like a hanging yet grounded chaos, a sentiment that resonated deeply with her. Abyss X aka Evangelia VS elaborates that this track refers to the “amalgamation of all the instances when you feel mentally stretched by different parallel realities and life’s roller coasters, just allowing yourself to recalibrate through the process by reassessing the gravity of events. Is it really “cold when bridges burn?” I kept revisiting this very strong visual of being a banyan woman slash tree just intrepidly stretching my psychic limbs into infinity.”
Freedom Doll is the culmination of a year of emotional unloading through songwriting, offering a deeply introspective journey into the mystical ocean of Abyss X’s mind inevitably hitting even the most concealed emotional cords of her listeners. It chronicles transformations the performer tackled mentally during the writing process tracing the rollercoaster of falling in love during the pandemic, as well as creative and career pressures and navigating the pleasures and tribulations of womanhood.
Freedom Doll:
- Ascend
- A Chew
- Torture Grove
- Oceans of Heat
- Vacuum (feat. Juliana Huxtable)
- From Hot To Cold
- This Strange Asylum
- Banyana
- Feeling a Type Away
- Never Apart (feat. Juliana Huxtable)
