Brazilian-born, Amsterdam-based vocalist, producer, performer, and DJ LYZZA announces new EP via her platform, Club LYZZA. Shares first single ‘Blackball’ single streaming links

“When was the last time you wished for the world to change in some way?” asks DIY pop provocateur LYZZA. Arriving as an urgent dispatch from what the artist describes as “the rumbling sea of my mind,” her new EP SUBSTATE serves as a fierce call to arms to subvert the conditions of the various hostile environments she has navigated her entire life. “This EP is a recollection of moments where I felt affected and frustrated by social rules and laws that are made to reinforce systems of inequality,” she explains. Pulling sharp focus on four of these systems, she paints vivid portraits of racial profiling within both the creative and public spheres, music industry politics, and professional disregard for emotional labor, each told with unflinching urgency and honesty. Finding immense strength in direct address, she works through her frustrations by violently rejecting them, channeling what she describes as an intense “yearning for subversion.”

Marrying the raw electricity of her earlier records Powerplay and Imposter with the polished pop experimentation of 2022’s MOSQUITO and last year’s ‘Fool’s Journey’, all while drawing from an ever-expanding sonic palette, developed in no small part through her genre-shredding DJ sets, on SUBSTATE, LYZZA synthesizes the breadth of her influences into one raucous sound. As with all her records, she’s imbued within every part of these tracks, through writing, production, and engineering, yet this project specifically sees the artist flexing her virtuosic production skills, folding everything from baile funk, to Baltimore club, to UK drill into stroboscopic productions designed to demolish your preconceptions, often swirling around contorted samples of her own voice. “This is my vanity project,” she states unapologetically. “This is me doing me, to the fullest.”

To help temper her confrontational sonic proclivities with her self-taught compositional nuance, LYZZA brings Emptyset’s James Ginzberg into the fray as an engineer, collaborating with the Subtext Recordings legend to balance fury with poise. “I’ve been reclaiming the fact that I’m actually quite a maximalist,” she admits. “Sometimes it can scare people. James was able to balance it out, to find the gaps within which you can surprise someone with a new thought, a new wave of sound.” Yet, through the noise, SUBSTATE sees LYZZA addressing her audience with a voice that is louder and clearer than ever. On the EP opener, ‘Blackball,’ she proudly declares, “This ain’t no experiment; / This is a lane / I’m going to say what I want to say.” Positioning her lyrics and vocals proudly front-and-center, it’s clear that not only does LYZZA have something vital to tell us, but it’s vitally important we listen.

Produced, written and performed by Lysa Da Silva aka LYZZA.