Toronto-based artist KERUB dives headfirst into memory, fear, and the uneasy pull of nostalgia on their mesmerizing new album, APHANTASIA. Blending lush indie electronica with philosophical depth and glitchy, dream-like textures, the album is a raw exploration of queerness, childhood, and trying to build a future when you can’t always picture one. Haunting lead single, “Calm,” captures the aftermath of panic in striking detail – that delicate moment when your heart finally slows and you’re left alone with the wreckage.

Written partially as a master’s thesis, “Calm” began in a haze of bodily awareness after KERUB‘s first panic attack, unpacking what it means to be so far from home, trying to stay grounded in a new city. Relocation from the West Coast to Toronto sparked reflections on connections left behind and those newly formed – woven through late-night phone calls, breathless arguments, and moments of quiet dissociation. With intimate vocals and instrumentals designed to feel both familiar and uncannily synthetic, “Calm” becomes a soft yet unflinching look at vulnerability, rendered with voyeuristic tenderness.

Across APHANTASIA, KERUB builds on this tension. Inspired by Nietzsche’s concept of the Eternal Return – an endless loop of life repeating itself – the album critiques the comforting but dangerous pull of early 2000s nostalgia. It’s at once a personal meditation on growing up queer in suburban Vancouver and a broader challenge to hauntology’s cultural recycling, asking: what if we’re doomed to relive it all? And what might it mean to claw out a new home anyway?