The “face of digicore” – 21-year-old producer Ericdoa – was made by and for the web: an e-boy incubated by on-line glitchpop and digicore producer communities. Like his friends (together with collaborators Glaive and Daine) the artist born Eric Lopez is a genre-bender by commerce, punching collectively angsty emo, gutsy hyperpop and suave entice, teetering towards the esoteric and irreverent with out ever dropping virality. It’s Submit Malone on a sugar rush.
Not in contrast to the iconoclastic hyperpop, its offshoot digicore favours abrasive manufacturing and ironic pop superstardom. The Interscope-signed Ericdoa’s biggest USPs are his hyperlinks to the gaming neighborhood and trade: the Discord-dwelling, Twitch-streaming, Riot Video games-collaborating artist posits a imaginative and prescient of misfit artistry at its most digitally native. He’s a brand new multi-hyphenate, an underground producer remodeling the material of pop superstar.
‘DOA’ – the follow-up to 2022’s ‘Issues With Wings’ – is not any much less sonically rebellious than his earlier materials, however is surprisingly extra grounded. Opener ‘The Cake Is A Lie’ begins with a breathless Eric atop police sirens, as if he’s sprinting from authority. It appears with all eyes on him (even TikTok success tales PinkPantheress and Addison Rae are notable followers) he’s fidgeting for artistic freedom past his computer-desk confines.
In a way, he defies his roots: though ‘DOA’ stays left-of-field, it washes away a lot of his staple glitchy bombast, as a substitute saturating in analogue soundscapes. Only some cuts – all album highlights, thoughts – stay near hyperpop: the 100 gecs-ish ‘Lastjune’, synth-tearing ‘Imcoolimgoodimstraight’ and thumping ‘Disaster Actor’. Certainly, his digital hedonism is missed, however not at all times to his detriment. Some respiration room permits the elevator jazz of ‘Kickstand’, melancholic shoegaze of ‘Dancinwithsomebawdy’ and pop-rock of ‘Arm And A Leg’ to all shine.
There’s a way that throughout ‘DOA’, Ericdoa seeks to recommit to the musical freedom on the coronary heart of the digicore motion. In defying expectations, ‘DOA’ is a reassertion of self that redefines the perimeters of his reckless abandon – or “a decaying of immaturity”, as he stated on this mixtape’s accompanying press supplies. Ericdoa dials ‘DOA’ down a number of notches with out sacrificing imaginative and prescient.
Particulars
- Launch date: January 15
- Report label: Interscope
