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May 10, 2021 Web Exclusive By Caleb Campbell

Rising Brisbane musician Jaguar Jonze has shown herself to be nothing if not committed. Last year, Jonze, born Deena Lynch, dislocated her shoulder on live TV during her Eurovision Decides performance, powering through to finish the performance. Months later, Jonze contracted COVID-19, released her debut EP on her way into the hospital, and recorded vocals for her sophomore EP Antihero while still under hospital care. That singular commitment makes for even stronger material from Jonze on Antihero, where her talents as a musician and visual artist coalesce into a dynamic cyberpunk world of electropop.

As a singer, musician, photographer, and visual artist Jonze has an unwavering commitment to aesthetics, crafting a unified multimedia world within both the EP’s visuals and music. In this case, Antihero sees Jonze declares herself the protagonist of a dusty cyberpunk western, with clashing aesthetics pulling from dusty Old West grit, glittering cyberpunk dystopias, and slick anime style. Not only do all these influences run through her high concept music videos (which also prove essential viewing for the EP), but traces run through the record itself, whether in the liberated celestial futurism of “Astronaut” or brooding instrumental drama of “Murder.”

The EP opens with “Tessellations” introducing the record amidst a brooding vocal performance, tumbling electro pop instrumental and reflective lyricism, exploring time lost to toxic cycles of behavior (“And I, I can’t erase/A time, time lost in vain/Angles to edges, edges to faces/We keep repeating the shapes”). Alternatively, that churning angst bursts into driving motion with “Deadalive,” driven by glossy futuristic electro pop and the twang of spaghetti western guitar licks.

Meanwhile, “Murder” and “Curled In” tell twisted love stories of guilt, abuse, and conflict, first through the dark textures of the former, then through the bouncing strut of the latter. Through it all though, Jonze puts on a swaggering confidence, reclaiming the EP’s narrative as her own story of hard-fought struggle and hard-won survival.

She only lets the hard edge fall in the EP’s gorgeous closing track “Astronaut.” Here the record’s biting tone drops for a floating highlight of a closer, carried by spacious percussion, thrumming pulses of guitar, and a stirring string section. It is the record’s plaintive and vulnerable endpoint, showing the anxieties and pain beneath Jonze’s confident persona. While Antihero may end on that undeniable highlight, one still feels that Jonze is still in the beginning stages of her broader story. Though “Astronaut” closes this chapter, it also offers little resolution, perhaps leaving that open for the future. Hopefully that next chapter offers up the same combination of moving catharsis and electrifying style Antihero does. (www.jaguarjonze.com)

Author rating: 7.5/10