01.03.19

Octo Octa wants to fill your heart with joy, sorrow and vulnerability. On new EP For Lovers, she invites us into her personal space. Across a backdrop of glittering synth melodies, foggy breakbeat and ecstatic piano stabs, she documents her journey of “self-acceptance and becoming”. And you’ll want to join her every step of the way.

The EP’s hooky nostalgic opener I Need You is a poignant, after-hours love letter to the Brooklyn-based producer and DJ’s support network (“This is for my friends / This is for my lovers/ This is for the people I care about”). It’s the first vocal performance she has recorded since her transition, using reverberated vocals to introduce a haunting house-meets-rave roller that rushes like a lost 90s classic.

Throughout the record, physicality, music and spiritual catharsis are inextricably linked. With its flashes of dreamy synth pads, Bodies Meld Together furrows into the deeper house end of the spectrum, while the transcendent lo-fi of Loops for Healing assumes the role of a “personal tool for healing”. On For Lovers, Octo Octa beams like a light therapy box on a dismal winter’s day.

April Clare Welsh