Behind the sonic landscape of Split Silk is Lucca Carver, a neurodivergent trans woman redefining the boundaries of post-hardcore. Today marks the release of our special presentation and exclusive track by track rundown of her new EP, “Drown,” a journey into the emotional and sonic spectrum that is as “graceful and delicate as it is vulnerable and intense.” In collaboration with Jean Scene, this release is also finding its physical home in a limited run tape.
Having been a part of various bands since the age of 16, Lucca is no stranger to the music scene. However, her previous roles were often sidelined to providing structural or instrumental support rather than having a creative input in the songwriting process. That all changed when she decided to dig deep into her own music around 2019.
“For years, I was chasing this sound in my head. I yearned for the post-hardcore grit but infused with a feminine touch. To truly get that out, I had to be the one to bring it to life,” Lucca explains.
Split Silk isn’t just music for the sake of music. It’s an emotional and mental health exercise for Lucca. Her creation process puts her in a meditative space where she can confront her traumas and suppressed memories.
“Creating allows me to live in the present while honoring my past. It’s like a divining rod that helps me process emotions, a sketchbook of my emotional journey,” says Lucca.
Drawing from the angular post-hardcore influences like Unwound, Rodan, and Shotmaker, “Drown” brings a feminine vulnerability without diluting the genre’s intensity. Lucca aspires to bring the delicate nuances you’d hear in the likes of Kim Deal or Mitski to the raw realms of post-hardcore.
This EP also marks a shift in Lucca’s lyricism, diving deeper into self-referential stories. The songs are more directly about her experiences rather than metaphorical storytelling.
“I wanted to strip away the masks and write directly about myself. It felt freeing, and I plan on being more direct in my future works,” Lucca shares.
Lucca admits to the addictive nature of her creative process. While she tries to balance her life with social interactions, she is constantly pulled back to her desk, to her sanctuary of music and emotions.
“Sometimes a melody or a riff will unleash a torrent of emotions that even I’m not ready to process, but that’s the beauty of it all,” she says.
Lucca hopes the emotional rawness she brought into “Drown” resonates with her audience. As she puts it, “I hope the therapy speak isn’t too much. Music, especially in the emo and post-hardcore world, is all about catharsis. I hope what I bring is true to that legacy but also uniquely mine.”
Track by track comentary, by Lucca Carver:
Attune: This track started with that guitar part that cycles throughout the song. It felt really hypnotic to me and at the time I wrote it I was reading about attunement as a concept, like attuning yourself to the needs of others. That was something I was always really good at, I’m very hypersensitive to the needs of others and tend to be such a people pleaser. For me, writing this song was all about listening to my inner child for the first time, and giving her the attention she deserves. I’m happy to honor that part of me, but frustrated that it took this long for that to happen.
Heirloom: This song is about hypervigillance, basically when you feel like you’re always on edge and ready to go into a fight or flight response. Hypervigillance for me was this heirloom from my childhood, where I felt like I always had to be on guard as I would mask different parts of myself, whether that be my gender or my neurodivergences; this ramshackle facade I was desperately trying to keep up to keep myself safe. This is probably the most like, noise rock song on the record, but I think it works for the tension in the lyrics.
Drown: I wrote the vocals for this song in one sitting after this day where I did this one meditation for the first time. It’s basically where you check-in with your heart, and let your anxious mind fade into the background. When I first checked in, my heart felt solid, or like clay that’s almost dried: thick and rigid. As I went through the meditation and thought about love and my inner child, I could feel my heart melt into honey. I could imagine myself slipping into it and floating. It was then that I realized that I want to learn how to swim inside my heart. For it to be as clear as water. I’d rather drown in that water if I make a mistake trying to open up to someone, than just suffocate all alone.
Hollow: This is my favorite one on the record. I wrote it first on acoustic I think? And then later on added everything else. I wanted to have a song with a that loud quiet loud dynamic, since I felt like some of the stuff I’d written in the past didn’t have much going on dynamically. This one is also about my childhood, and just feeling so isolated growing up. It was a very hollow existence, and I’d put so much pressure on myself to keep up the facade, and learn to pretend to be a guy, or neurotypical. The dynamic shifts felt very fitting to the dichotomy of my internal and external worlds, where deep down I can hear myself screaming about all the effort that just left me so hollow.
Noble: This song started as me trying to push myself outside of the normal song structures I’d relied on. I think that pop song structures can help songs with more intense elements feel a little more relatable and tangible, otherwise it can be hard for the listener to follow. For this one though I wanted a song that had distinct parts that all felt different, and a song that started differently than it ended. The lyrics are a blend of all the feelings that are spread across this record, I wanted to have a song that kinda felt like it had everything in it.
Ocean Heart: Oh gosh so this song kinda has a funny story, so I’d actually never seen the movie Titanic before earlier this year. I’m a big period drama lover, so it’s kinda funny that it’s evaded me for all this time, but I found the character of Rose so fascinating because she goes from this terrible loss to like, being an old woman, seemingly at peace with her fate. When I wrote this song I was just thinking about that a lot, and I wrote this song as her finally processing her own trauma, and allowing herself to be fucking pissed and frustrated. It was definitely a case of me projecting, but I think that’s the magical thing about movies and books: they give us the space to work through our own feelings along with the characters. I guess it’s kinda cheesy, but it’s true.
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