Having spent the last year touring with Charli XCX's band & collaborating with artists like Tourist, emerging London-based producer Esther Joy is back with a new EP, The Acid Caves Vol 1, which is set for release on April 27. The first single from the new record, ‘Day 1 (Silipur Leaves Home)’, is online now.

'The Acid Caves' is based on a supernatural universe created in the mind of Esther Joy and follows Silipur, a non-human ‘lifeblood’ who illegally departs her planet for Earth in search of an energy and connection she desperately needs. Esther explains the narrative she imagines for this record: 'The Acid Caves’ is based in a universe in which all planets are connected by an energy system called ‘The Chaos’. The Chaos is the energy that sustains all planets & all life forms. It's the emotional, the spiritual & the supernatural.

Esther will be releasing each track with a section of story. This story will follow Silipur, a lonely, cynical lifeblood who chooses to abandon her planet illegally for Earth. She is one of many who will try to break through the temporary gate in hope of tasting Earth’s purest energy.

The Acid Caves tracklist:

1. Day 1 (Silipur Leaves Home)

2. Day 4 (Landing)

3. Day 5 (What He Found)

It’s pop music, Jim, but not as we know it. Esther Joy is a member of Charli XCX's live band and her debut EP is what Charli would sound like if she were produced by Trent Reznor and Martin Gore. It’s atmospheric and trippy: utilising pop sounds and instrumentation to create something unsettling and occasionally nauseating.

Psychic Tears is her first EP and if there is such a thing as bubblegum noir, then this is it. Joy wrote, recorded, and produced it herself, and her individualist approach shows through in the end result. It’s a sound unlike anything else. It’s Marina And The Diamonds going shoegaze, and La Roux playing with The Cure. ‘Franke’ is a gothic synthfest with an Aphex Twin edge.

Recent single ‘Samgel’ teases with melody lines that beg for a big beat explosion but instead plumb the long dark night of the soul. Speaking about the song Joy said, “'Samgel' is the name I use for the dark presence I experience and write about a lot in my music. It is a part of me that has overwhelmed me so much in my life and been the root to most of my darkest moments. I named this track after it because as soon as I wrote that first synth line (the big intense one at the beginning), it was like I had found Samgel".” So she’s pretty much nailed it, I’d say.

New single ‘Friendless Necessity’ brings the EP to a close. It is haunting, hooky, and desperate; which sums up the record as a whole. Esther Joy shows the dark beauty of pop’s underbelly on Psychic Tears, but the most exciting thing about this release is the possibility of more to come.

Psychic Tears is available from iTunes.