EKKO ASTRAL WANTS YOU TO SCREAM

by Riley Kirk

A Monday night at South Side staple Club Cafe brings a dedicated crowd out of the woodwork– more than just your usual people looking for a local night of music at the bar on the weekends. Those who have tickets for the first night of the D.C.-based noise punk five-piece Ekko Astral’s headlining tour have been moved by something raw and real in their hearts to be there.

Jael Holzman, frontwoman and guitarist for Ekko Astral, commands the room’s attention. Between sets she moves amongst the crowd, cheering the loudest for the openers and shouting “CENTER MIC!” at soundcheck, giving the audience a taste of what they’re about to be a part of.

pink balloons is the debut long play by D.C. band Ekko Astral, self-categorized as ‘mascara moshpit’ music. Originally born as a graduate thesis project by guitarist Liam Hughes and frontwoman and lyricist Jael Holzman, Ekko Astral entered their long-spectated hometown scene with a 2022 EP QUARTZ, six capitalized tracks. In counterpart, pink balloons, released April 17, features eleven lowercase titles. However, the first full-length release from the band, fleshed out by drummer Miri Tyler, bassist Guinevere Tully, and guitarist Sam Elmore, is anything but understated. 

The album begins with an echoey line from a poem from the collection “thoughts on weightlessness” by activist and poet Ari Drennen. Later revealed to be the backbone of the album, “I can see you shifting in your seat” and a glimpse of the haunting instrumentals to come will become a sort of refrain that you are immediately distracted from as frontwoman Jael Holzman’s pointed vocals take the focus. 

“I wanted to take one of (Drennan’s) poems and find a way to weave it through an album, and I knew I wanted it to be the first record because her art speaks to a similar frustration with the way that people process real life,” Holzman says. “People don’t read articles, but they do listen to music–and I say that as a journalist. It’s hard to get someone to read these days, but it’s not hard to get them to listen to a song. Taking those words and putting them on a record was the best way that I could get people to finally hear what she was trying to say.”

Recently having left congressional journalism, Holzman understands the turmoils of the world all too well: “I got lucky enough to start as a reporter on Capitol Hill the week that Donald Trump was inaugurated. I walked by a tank my first week of work. I’ve taken down top political officials; I’ve investigated serious wrongdoings and how they’ve affected the way the world is. I think journalism serves a purpose, and I fucking love journalism. I also think that (music) might be the most powerful thing.”

pink balloons is laced with modern pop-culture references (Frank Ocean, the commonly joked about pronunciation of Bon Iver, Molly Shannon, and even chronically online Twitter-esque phases such as “uwu” and “bae”) stacked next to glaring truths: “lots of us don’t make it home / dead kids in their bedrooms / dead people in the street.” Holzman, in her fourth year out as transgender, doesn’t give a fuck if she makes you uncomfortable.  

pink balloons was fully produced by Jeremy Synder, described by the band on social media as “our communist wizard”, and recorded by R.E.M. producer Mitch Easter’s Fidelitorium Studios. The album was released on TopShelf Records and has already gained attention from national publication Pitchfork and landed Ekko Astral on Stereogum’s list of “Bands to Watch.” 

Ekko’s bandcamp bio says it best: “pink balloons is about disruption. But it’s also about Washington D.C., queerness, partying, money, violence, difference, irony, and religion. And also: fuck you.”

The album is sequenced uniquely in regards to sonics; the first four high-energy tracks flying straight into each other until a chain-like scraping begins the spoken word track “somewhere at the bottom of the river between l’enfant and eastern market.” The remainder of the tracks intensify in emotion until climaxing in the upheaval of “i90”, during which Holzman demands listeners “keep the rhythm” in the face of a horrifying, Jesus-billboard-filled world. 

“Bubblegum vodka” is not only a verse of opening track “head empty blues” but also a potential genre descriptor for pink balloons as a record, despite Ekko Astral’s general distaste for being pigeon-holed. The band’s first full-length release is a sharp whiff of vodka on the tongue, mashed with noisily smacked bubblegum. When you drink alcohol, it travels through your bloodstream and is eventually expelled in part through your lungs as you breathe. This is the kind of live energy Ekko Astral gives the audience: it fills you up and has nowhere to go but out. 

Each night on tour, Ekko Astral is raising money for a fund relevant to the city. On Monday night, the band raised money in the name of the late Pauly Likens for Another Chance Animal Rescue. Pauly Likens was a trans fourteen-year-old found murdered and dismembered an hour and a half away from Pittsburgh in June. She was a child who loved music and animals. 

The understood pain in the room is tangible as Holzman and the crowd scream back and forth at each other, “I’ve got solidarity with all the missing murdered people!” during the live rendition of “devorah”.

“What are you going to do about it?” Holzman demands, and she is met with heavy silence. The overwhelming fear of not knowing the “right” thing to say, of not knowing what one person can do to make a difference in a world so seemingly hopeless and cruel, suffocates us. 

“That’s what I thought. Here is one small thing you can do: on three, I want you to scream,” Holzman says. On cue, an anguished roar is released, the sound of a world of people suffering without food on the table, without love, without empathy, a core value Ekko Astral holds dear to their heart. And at the same time: the hope that stems from the fact that we can all acknowledge the suffering, and in turn, do better. 

One more question for us before the end of the night; before the band packs up their Spiderman amp and duct-taped drum kit and heads on to the next city, before the people forfeit their glasses to the bartender and go home to their quiet houses: “If you could change one thing about the world today, what would it be?”

The end of people killing people, the end of hate, the end of occupancy and genocide in Gaza: the list goes on, but the shouted answers are all the same at the core. Everybody in the room wants to help more than just themselves. Everybody is dreaming bigger than personal liberation or achievements; everybody wants to foster not only their own community but the communities neighboring and the communities all the way across the world. 

An audience previously faceless is now individualized and united all at once. 

Riley Kirk is a multimedia creative and journalist. She loves finding inspiration in the DIY scene, music, and this beautiful city. She has published pieces with Grain of Salt Magazine (archived) and the Pittsburgh Independent, all of which you can read from her instagram @rileyalicewrites.