UP LATE ANNOUNCES
SOPHOMORE EP ‘TOTAL
FUCKING DARKNESS!’
OUT NOV 5
Straddling lines of metal, punk, hip hop, rap and those blurred in between, TOTAL FUCKING DARKNESS! is the sophomore EP from UNFD’s resident genre bender, Up Late. Out in full Friday November 5, today’s announcement comes alongside the reveal of a new single lifted from the EP titled ‘HEARTSICK’.
‘HEARTSICK’ finds Up Late — AKA singer, songwriter, producer and visual artist Max Pasalic — unpacking the effects his sometimes-rash and impulsive creative nature has on his relationships. Musically, he describes looking to “interpret what a band like Saosin might sound like if they were produced by Metro Boomin,” with the track, adding:
“‘HEARTSICK’ is about falling in love while being tied to your dreams and how, unfortunately, it seldom works out for both people. Being a creative normally pushes you to deal with problems or decisions with the emotional part of your brain, something that I know I’ve dealt with throughout my teens and early twenties. You can be rash, unpredictable and in-directly (or directly) destructive to yourself and your loved ones. But most of the time, when you become aware of those traits in yourself, it’ll be too late.”
As its title suggests, the TOTAL FUCKING DARKNESS! EP encapsulates deep areas of pain and darkness for its creator Up Late. Across its six tracks we find him confronting habits of self-destruction (‘DIVA’) and battling the frustrations of growing up in a small, uninspired town (‘DIRT BIKE’). But despite this, TFD! is dripping in self-awareness, hyperbole and humour – it’s Pasalic’s perfectly contradictory and confusing dream release.
In fact, TOTAL FUCKING DARKNESS! is everything his 13-year-old self would want it to be. Desperate to be a non-conforming musician, Pasalic recalls his creative urges being suffocated and undermined from an early age. TOTAL FUCKING DARKNESS! is permission sent from Up Late back to that 13 year-old kid to be the exact artist he pleases.
“I was excited for anything that reverberated in my eardrums, no matter how different or weird that sound was, but never had the agency to follow it for myself,” he shares. “TFD! is my way of taking back that agency to be whoever I want musically, and I wrote it believing that it could become a gateway for someone else to discover different sounds, cultures and genres too.”
CLICK BELOW TO WATCH THE MUSIC VIDEO FOR ‘HEARTSICK’ NOW
About Up Late:
There are few in the Australian music scene with a more polarising baptism of fire than Up Late, the monicker of Wollongong artist Max Pasalic. Introduced to hardcore and rap at 11, before balancing a stacked touring schedule, production sessions and high-school studies by 17, Pasalic then turned his attention to his own vocal abilities and found break out success on triple j with his early heavy band After Touch.
In 2020 Pasalic brought together his wide and varied background to his first solo project, Up Late. After debuting the project with a knockout entry into triple j’s DIY Supergroup comp in May that year, Up Late scored an honourable mention among 900+ other entrants, a nomination as one of the “10 most exciting discoveries of 2020” by triple j and nods from local music media including Pilerats, Life Without Andy, Music Feeds, Blunt Magazine + more who would call him ‘2020’s break-out’.
An intriguing mix of influences underpin the Up Late sound. From touching on elements of heritage acts likes Kanye West and Silverstein, to drawing comparisons to some of today’s biggest alternative big hitters like Machine Gun Kelly, Mod Sun, nothing,nowhere. and City Morgue – Up Late simply refuses to be pinned to one box.
Following his 2020 EP STARS, 2021 finds Up Late releasing his jam-packed sophomore effort TOTAL FUCKING DARKNESS!, released in full November 5 via UNFD.
TRACKLIST:
1. DIVA
2. YOU PEAKED IN HIGH SCHOOL FT. DXRMANT
3. TOTAL FUCKING DARKNESS! FT. WXRMZ
4. DIRT BIKE
5. HEARTSICK
6. TIDAL WAVE (FORTRESS THEME)
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