postmoderndisco releases new single, “Anthesis” (Interview)

Jenna Melanson·June 24, 2023

postmoderndisco’s Latest Release “Anthesis” Is A Mesmerizing Journey into the World of Lo-Fi Electronic Music

Toronto-born, Valencia, Spain-based lo-fi, electronic artist, postmoderndisco’s new track, “Anthesis,” follows a metaphor for life through the lens of a beautiful blooming flower.

“The song is a musical soundscape written during a period of writer’s block and struggle with perfectionism,” postmoderndisco said.

She began writing “Anthesis” in 2015, shortly after her debut EP Chasing Memories, came out. However, as the growth process goes, she ran into some hiccups and roadblocks with the composition of the transformative time.

The creation of “Anthesis” parallels life. postmoderndisco said the tune took eight years to create. She ran into roadblocks and speedbumps with the mixing process, so she enlisted some producer friends from Berklee to catalyze the production. She also turned to her classical music experience for inspiration and studied bands that fuse electronic and alternative genres, such as Purity Ring and Son Lux.

“‘Anthesis’ first began as a place to experiment with creating textures by sampling and manipulating acoustic instruments (as heard at the start of the song), blending them until they were no longer identifiable,” she said.

The tune opens with billowing production, introducing the first stage of a flower’s life. Throughout the next several seconds, windy synth percussion wisps through the opening, and a haunting, ethereal vocalist lends light hums and shoegaze lyrics to the dynamic track. Around the one-minute mark, light crescendoing keys erupt into a beat drop filled with shoegaze sounds and triplet percussion beats.

Haunting flutes back the otherworldly vocals throughout the track as postmoderndisco relays a story about a flower’s delicate yet wondrous life.

The song is a “powerful and emotive song that inspires listeners to embrace their personal growth and overcome their internal struggles. The use of flower blooming as a metaphor for personal growth and the invitation to enter a different dimension through music create a unique and engaging experience that aims to resonate with many people,” she stated.

Almost a decade later, “Anthesis” offers a masterful meditation on the circle of life.

“‘Anthesis’ leans on its ethereal layers of haunting vocals, soaring strings, and downtempo beats, postmoderndisco wishes to give listeners a different dimension and space to escape from the busyness of life and be rejuvenated,” she said.

postmoderndisco is a second-generation Chinese-Canadian musician. She meshes her Western upbringing with her Chinese heritage to influence her discography and strives to serve as a representative Asian female voice in music. To enhance the ambient atmosphere, she incorporates various instruments into live performances, like French Horn, violin, flute, and clarinet. Currently, postmoderndisco is pursuing her master’s degree in screen scoring at Berklee College of Music.

Watch the video for “Anthesis” below and learn more about postmoderndisco via our mini-interview.

Care to introduce yourself?

Hi! I was born and raised in Toronto, but I’m currently wrapping up a master’s degree in screen scoring at Berklee College of Music. The program’s at their Valencia, Spain campus. It’s been a super cool experience living in this city this year. Growing up, I loved listening to grunge and alternative rock, the Lord of the Rings soundtrack and studied classical piano and violin. I started dabbling in electronic music production during my undergrad years studying classical composition. Recently I’ve been really loving the music for Everything Everywhere All At Once and Prehistoric Planet! In my free time (which isn’t a lot, cause school is really jam-packed) I like to explore Valencia and the beautiful weather here.

Tell us about the process of writing and recording “’Anthesis?”

“Anthesis” is the blooming stage of a flower. So it refers to the ideas of growth, movement, and development. When I first started writing this piece, I started with exploring layers. For a while, I’ve been super into textures.

As I worked on it and watched it grow, I also grew myself. And recently, it’s been on my mind how we live through life with such pride in our understanding of the world, but then sometimes something happens that’s much bigger than ourselves, and we are humbled and we “wake up”, realizing that we are so small and that the world is much bigger than our perspective of it. For example, perhaps you don’t think the view on the mountain top is pretty, but just because you think that does not make it so. One day it occurs to you that it is breathtakingly beautiful, but the view never changed, it’s just that you grew, and perhaps you had been too ignorant, foolish, or caught up in your own little world before, and its beauty was beyond your comprehension (the metaphor is drawn from my friend Jasmine Gui’s installation and poem). I personally have experienced that and I think many others have too, so this instrumental piece explores those sorts of epiphanies we encounter as we grow and mature.

Who was the first Canadian artist to blow you away?

Ah… I have to say the first Canadian artists I loved to listen to – Sum41. But it was Avril Lavigne, a female soloist in the world of a bunch of dudes, who really inspired me! Complicated and Sk8er Boi shook my world