‘It Scares Me, Being Boxed In’: Ixaras Steps Into Her New Era With ‘THIS CITY’

Ixaras has already cemented herself in the Brisbane scene as an indie-rock staple. The 17-year-old has been dropping banger after banger over the past couple of years, culminating in her November 2024 debut EP, Full Lover Fake Friend. 

But she’s ready to shed her skin, moving on with her fresh single, THIS CITY - which dropped last night (May 15) - a darker, punk-ier, synth-ier track than what we’ve come to expect from Ixaras.

“It's so sonically different from that whole first body of work I did, the Full Lover Fake Friend EP,” Ixaras tells The Music. “But when writing those, I was so young. I was like, 13 to 15 writing those songs - I say that as a 17 year old, being like, ‘Oh, I was so young’. But, especially during the years where you're about to turn 18, you become like seven different people. And I think, because of that, and how crazy development is per year, especially when you're transitioning into adulthood, you just become a lot more hyper aware of how you consume media. I realised that everything you are influenced by is in the context of everything you've ever been exposed to. So I started listening to different music instead of just indie rock music, because I was only listening to that. I was like, ‘I need to get out of this box.’”

Choosing to broaden her tastes, Ixaras dove into the world of EDM, DNB and “a lot of that wack synth shit”, where she noticed that the “lower frequencies” had a “grounding” effect on her. So, when overwhelmed by a music industry event late last year, Ixaras headed straight to the studio to make a track with those frequencies.

“We got out of the event, and I was like, ‘Oh my God, I want to just make something right now. I just went non verbal for like two hours. Let's just get into this year.’ We hopped in the studio, and then I was thinking about how I was so anxious to talk to people at this thing. Like, I didn't even go out of my way to try and put myself out there or anything. And it kind of made me confused, because, when I perform on stage, I'm almost acting, like I put on this character where I'm super confident, and I'm crazy, like, rock and roll. 

“I realised, ‘Fuck, this is it's like two personas.’ Like, yes, we're the same person, but I become more anxious and more aware of everything around me when there's not a guitar in front of me, or I'm not holding a microphone. When I'm holding a microphone, it's like I'm meditating, but when I'm not, I'm just so hyper aware of everything, and I get so anxious.So I was just thinking about that, and I was like, ‘Well, what if I killed that part of myself?’ Like metaphorically, like a split personality, like the novel Jekyll and Hyde, and how it's two split personalities, and one of them is this crazy murdering dude, and the other one's this really timid, anxious Doctor man. So the whole song is about killing off this past self, almost like a love letter to a past version of yourself, in order to be seen.”

Though the music video leans into this Jekyll and Hyde-esque narrative, the lyrics of THIS CITY feed more into Ixaras’ personal visions of success. She laughs as she clarifies that the lyrics saying, “This city knows my name” is more of a dream than a reality at the moment.

“The song itself is just a manifestation. It's more of a declaration and a manifestation and a lie, if anything. I just want this song to be a massive manifestation for these next couple of things.”

But what is next for the 17-year-old punk? Well, that is to be seen. But, with $30,000 of resources backing her - thanks to Ixaras’ recent winning of the Greater Good grant - we’re sure it’ll be interesting. Vaguely teasing the release of a new “hypothetical” EP later this year, she did give us a small taste of what’s to come.

“I think no one really writes about the transition into being secure in yourself, if that makes sense. Thinking about when we're like teenagers and we're so anxious, I guess the idea of this next body of work - not saying that there is a next body of work, but maybe hypothetically, if there were - it’d be about, like, the kind of depth in perception and getting rid of your past self. That’s why THIS CITY was really important to start with, being the first single this year.”