Toronto-based artist KERUB dives headfirst into memory, fear, and the uneasy pull of nostalgia on their mesmerizing new album, APHANTASIA. Blending lush indie electronica with philosophical depth and glitchy, dream-like textures, the album is a raw exploration of queerness, childhood, and trying to build a future when you can’t always picture one. Haunting lead single, “Calm,” captures the aftermath of panic in striking detail – that delicate moment when your heart finally slows and you’re left alone with the wreckage.
Written partially as a master’s thesis, “Calm” began in a haze of bodily awareness after KERUB’s first panic attack, unpacking what it means to be so far from home, trying to stay grounded in a new city. Relocation from the West Coast to Toronto sparked reflections on connections left behind and those newly formed – woven through late-night phone calls, breathless arguments, and moments of quiet dissociation. With intimate vocals and instrumentals designed to feel both familiar and uncannily synthetic, “Calm” becomes a soft yet unflinching look at vulnerability, rendered with voyeuristic tenderness.
Across APHANTASIA, KERUB builds on this tension. Inspired by Nietzsche’s concept of the Eternal Return – an endless loop of life repeating itself – the album critiques the comforting but dangerous pull of early 2000s nostalgia. It’s at once a personal meditation on growing up queer in suburban Vancouver and a broader challenge to hauntology’s cultural recycling, asking: what if we’re doomed to relive it all? And what might it mean to claw out a new home anyway?
Throughout the writing, this theme of continuity kept popping up. I’m not sure the entire album orients around resilience, but it kept appearing regardless. The story I’m trying to tell is that you can find beauty in memories without wanting to ever live them again. Even if you can’t imagine a future, you can still create one. – KERUB
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