- The breakout Toronto artist returns with her third solo EP.
- Ciel's fingers are on the pulse of Toronto's electronic music scene. As a promoter, DJ, radio host, and label cofounder, her activities revolve around building networks for creatives while helping make Canada's largest city a clubbing capital. She brings the same focus to her productions. By merging retro electro-style breakbeats with a busting bassline and atmospheric synths, "Why Me?" is versatile enough for both dance floors and chill-out rooms. It opens with the voice of a hypnotist, sampled from an old movie, counting down for her patient until he falls asleep. Referencing the relationship between hypnosis and the repetitive elements of electronic music is so on-the-nose that it comes off as wryly humorous, but as the scene turns awry—a confrontation between the patient and an alien takes place—desperate lines ("go away!," "why me?") are repeated.
Why Me? is more anxious than Ciel's past releases, but it retains the laidback elements that so often get called "dreamy." It most recalls the full sound of Central's remix of "The Twirler" from 2018's Hundred Flowers EP, with elements that occupy every sonic register, from high end chirps to low end bass rhythms. In both sound and emotion, balance is key. Ciel explains that the EP comes from a place of, "anger, despair, paranoia," while communicating that, "there's always hope for understanding and resolution." This track finds its success in striking such balances.
"Go Fish," a collaboration with Wiretapping, is elated, if off-kilter, with stuttering percussion and a bright melody. "Uri's song," another collaboration with Sims, is darker. "Hipwrecked" is the most functional, sporting a quick tempo and a straightforward rhythm, but it also has the least personality. Even as these tracks delve into heavy terrain, they maintain the buoyant sound present in all of Ciel's work.
TracklistA1 Why Me?
A2 Go Fish feat. Wiretapping
B1 Hipwrecked
B2 Uri's Song feat. Wiretapping