EMEI

In the organizer's words:

A journey down a rabbit hole is often a dark and confusing descent into madness. To descend down a rabbit hole is to descend into your own madness. To remain stuck in it is to allow yourself to be consumed by it. But for those who have the will to pull themselves out, the reward at the end can be profound: a moment of clarity that paves the way to personal transformation.

Two years after her TikTok hit "Late to the party", rising self-confessed alt-pop singer Emei has fallen down her own rabbit hole and undergone a metamorphosis. Following the release of her previous well-received projects "End of an Era" and "Scatterbrain," the Los Angeles-based songwriter has emerged from a challenging period of writer's block and creative renewal to return with her most ambitious and intimate work to date.

"RABBITHOLE," her glossy, high-octane third EP, is a journey within a journey that thematically traverses the darkest depths of her psyche, touching on anxiety, insecurity and madness with hyper-relatable lyrics, wit and perspective. But the making of the album was also incisive, as it ushered in a new artistic era for the singer. It is her very first concept project and is loosely inspired by the classic bildungsroman Alice in Wonderland. "I've spent the last year or two developing my sound and the visuals," she says. "Career-wise, [RABBITHOLE] feels very much like a project I had to go through. It's Emei 2.0. It reflects this time of growing up and becoming the person I'm meant to be."

The six-track project is structured like an anxiety spiral and begins with the pulsating punch of "RABBITHOLE", her metaphorical plunge into the titular pit, which is both anxiety diary and breathing meditation. By the time the EP's energetic closing track arrives, Emei has completed a redemptive 360° turn. "All [songs] are like a journey where you sink into panic and anxiety and then come out," she says.

They're familiar and acute themes for the 24-year-old songwriter, whose previous releases like "Irresponsible" and "Better People To Leave On Read" made her a particularly enlightened diagnostician of Gen Z. "I've always been a pretty anxious girl," she says.

She considers this a symptom of growing up as the child of immigrants and the only creative in a STEM-heavy family. Growing up in New Jersey with Chinese parents who worked in engineering and accounting, she was taught the value of hard work early on, along with the more personal notions of excelling. Today, it's her ambition that drives her fast-growing career from TikTok singer to internationally touring artist - but also her creeping feelings of self-doubt. "Touring is the best part of my job," she says. "But when I announce a show, I immediately think, 'I've got to get this right in the first few minutes'. I always ask myself, 'What's the worst-case scenario?"

On RABBITHOLE, there are a lot of big questions like this. "How many times can I say I'm sorry? How many times will you take me back?" she asks herself in the twangy heartbreak ballad 'NINE LIVES', the first time she has ventured into an acoustic sound. The song was written after a fight with her boyfriend and describes the inner turmoil when she realized that she was "not a very considerate person", she says.

"ALL THESE KIDS", a banger in the middle of the album, takes aim at the rich, sky-chasing party kids of Los Angeles: 'All these kids wanna ride for free/ Ride, ride, ride on my coattail swing', she sings in a biting chant. Between the lines, however, she reveals a growing doubt about her social environment.

"RABBITHOLE" undoubtedly traverses heavy themes, but the songs never lose themselves in dullness, due in large part to Emei's songwriting, which carries a certain youthful je ne sais quais, an endearing nonchalance. She's serious, but she's also silly, as she coos in "SUGARCOAT", the EP's turning point: "Spoonful of sugar makes the boys go woo".

"I don't write these crazy, poetic lyrics. For some reason that always makes me uncomfortable," she says of her approach to songwriting. "For me, they're like diary entries. That's just how I feel, and if you're bothered by it, you're bothered by it."

This realness comes through in "THE PART", the EP's redemptive final track, which is about pushing yourself to reach your full potential: "It feels like Alice eating a tiny little cookie that makes her grow 10x," says Emei.

It's a snapshot of Emei at the point in her own musical journey where she's working to fully realize her own artistic potential. Markers of her growth are visible in the album's credits, as she continues to expand her creative relationships with producers Boy Blue, Timfromthehouse, Matt Kahane and others. The visual side of the album also shows her incorporating aspects of her heritage - the color red, which symbolizes everything from celebration to success in China, as well as braids, a hairstyle from her childhood - into her music.

Taking stock of her journey, Emei breathlessly says: "I feel like I've released a part of myself that I didn't really know before. It's an exaggerated, bigger version of who I am."

This is her hard-earned reward for daring to go down the rabbit hole.