Austin-based artist Primo the Alien has been in town for eight years, selling out venues, releasing an EP, and taking to the stage at Austin City Limits Music Festival in 2022. September 12 marks another big milestone for Primo. She'll release her new album, Chaospop, and play a show to celebrate the culmination of this exhausting but exhilarating project.
It'd be neat and clean to describe her sound as distinctly pop, or synth, or electronic, or something — but as she says herself, she doesn't really have a "theme."
"I make a lot of music," she says, "and I change a lot. So I don't really have a brand or cohesion from project to project. This album is entirely different from the EP [We All Hate Ourselves Sometimes] I released before, and will be entirely different from the next."
As Primo describes it, her previous EP was full of real emotion, but it was also somewhat designed to appeal to "the powers that be" in Austin's music scene.
"It had acoustic guitar, it had like singer-songwriter-y stuff," she explains. "It was just so easily accessible for them. I was so sure that [the people who power Austin's music scene] would eat it up."
But, she says, they didn't. And so in her new album, Chaospop, created in collaboration with Austin producer Taylor Webb, Primo is done appealing to anyone.
From the first song to the 14th on this EP, it's obvious that Primo is no longer placating these hypothetical listeners. Instead, she has fully leaned into hard electronic chaos with deep, resounding bass, and lots of sexy hyperpop beats and vocals, resulting in a cohesive journey of songs that are entirely danceable, empowering, dark, and fun.
Each of these songs was created in a frenzy. Sometimes, Primo and Webb cranked a track out in less than 24 hours. Recording and production had to be squeezed into a life including full-time jobs, voice lessons, other creative projects, and a world that, to Primo, feels on fire.
"I'm in this era right now where I want every song to be like, 'I'm going out right now, and I'm having a blast.' I feel like that's where we are collectively, you know?" she says. "Everything sucks and we're all just like, what the f***? Let's just party and try to forget."
Turn up the bass, and don't attempt to listen to this sitting still. This is an album that begs for movement: dancing, running, and driving fast with the windows down.
Among the standouts is "Aura," is a very bouncy hyperpop-meets-EDM track. It's one of Primo's favorites on the album, as it's "really accessible," but still off-kilter and strange.
"The Devil is Real" is fun and somewhat dark with a sense of humor; the type of deeply synthesized track that you might blast at night, heading to a party. The beat is catchy, and even though it's hard to understand exactly what she's saying in much of the song, the refrain is clear: "The devil is real, and he's my boyfriend."
"What If" is by far the longest track on the album, at 4:16, whereas most songs hover around two or three minutes. This softer, melodic song sounds like it'd be big at a Burning Man sound camp in 2026. It's a sexy, sultry mix riding big electronic waves and tiptoeing toward organic house.
"Breakfast," on the other hand, is probably the "crunchiest" on the album and perhaps the best; a harsher-sounding track that approaches the "devil" with less cuteness than "The Devil Is Real." Industrial sounds herald Marilyn Manson and Nine Inch Nails, and the track demands a rave, a la Blade.
All told, the 14 songs — heavy on the synth, electronic ambiance, and heavy, heavy bass — all express Primo's current M.O., I'm doing whatever I want, and I don't care how weird it is. They invite the listener to do the same.
Primo also promises "to get super weird," at her upcoming album release show, September 12 at 29th Street Ballroom. She's teaming up with Cynthia Lee Fontaine, Arya, Sydney Wright, and Kinderr for a "big pop show" in which she'll become a "crazy, wild banshee lady person" on stage.
Chaospop is available on Spotify, Apple Music, and more. Other links can be found here.
