breakkaway – It all feels the same from afar
NYC genre-bending collective breakkaway announce their debut EP It all feels the same from afar, out Nov 13, alongside video for new single “I know” featuring Softcult.
Lush guitars and pulsing synths bloom alongside Jessica Li’s and Mercedes and Phoenix Arn-Horn’s breathless vocals as they mourn a lost love.
On the collaboration, Li shares, “Softcult is a band I’ve been listening to for a couple of years now, and when we finished ‘I know,’ I immediately thought of them and how the dreamy, ethereal quality of their voices would add so much to the song. When we heard them on the track, we felt that ‘I know’ had finally clicked into place. Their intricately arranged harmonies added so much texture and truly made the song feel like a layered dialogue between two people who were both feeling and suffering deeply, creating a much more complex dynamic than that of just one person hurting on their own.”
breakkaway released their first single in 2023; now, over three years later and with nearly 22 million streams, the collective is ready to release their first definitive collection. Featuring previously released singles “Portrait on fire” and “Run away with me,” the EP builds on their moody, cinematic foundations, mixing elements of alternative, indie, and shoegaze.
It all feels the same from afar, centers on the “grief of outgrowing things that once defined you while still yearning for them.” Pulling the EP title from their track “Older,” the band shares, “it represents how, with enough time and distance, both the good and bad moments of coming of age come to be viewed with a certain detached romanticism.”
“It’s a love letter to the past few years of our lives,” shares Case Fadell. “We’ve all changed so much since we started, and this EP reflects that evolution in a way that is singular to us and this time period. We pushed ourselves to create something greater than the sum of its parts, and I’m so proud of this body of work. We’re so happy to announce and soon share this with the world.”
The collective’s deeply introspective songwriting draws from an expansive range of music and film, spanning The 1975, Phoebe Bridgers, Yeule, and Karmanjakah, as well as Portrait of a Lady on Fire and I Saw the TV Glow. Inspired by the sci-fi romance Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, “Montauk” channels melancholic tension, beginning as a dreamy ballad before erupting into soaring, heavy breakdowns.
breakkaway formed in 2022 while its founding members attended a U.S. arts academy, “I think for all of us it was the first time in our lives where we found ourselves in a place that music and art was OK to pursue,” Li says. Crucially, too, they found each other: kindred spirits for whom, as Li attests, the creation of music is “an extension of our existence.” Over cheap takeout and movie nights, the band would stitch together the rich layers of the breakkaway blueprint. Little wonder their music is imbued with such cinematic qualities, in its own way, a soundtrack to the daydream visuals it conjures.
breakkaway is Jessica Li, Case Fadell, Romain Dammann, Jorge Gonzalez Diez Gutierrez, and Ethan Chan.
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