RISING ARTIST ZZZAHARA’S DEBUT ALBUM LIMINAL SPACES OUT NOW

Liminal Spaces, the debut album from Los Angeles-based queer guitarist and songwriter zzzahara, is out today via Lex Records—listen/share here. A new track, “coldish,” also debuts today alongside a video—watch here.

“Liminal Spaces reflects all the music styles in the indie rock era that have influenced me over the years, and I really focused on making it a cohesive album,” zzzahara says. “I chose the name because L.A. started feeling small to me, especially in the dating world. I think a lot of the songwriting reflects the ‘emo’ bits of me. I’ve delt with depression for a while it felt nice to write about about instances of insecurity or heartbreak.”

“The album was recorded in various places like my garage, my bedroom, a friend’s bedroom and Stones Throw’s recording studio. I had the opportunity to use music equipment that I normally would not be able to afford which gave the album a big boost. The quality of sound is very important to me. In a lot of ways, it felt like a new me was being born musically.”

“Liminal Spaces would have not been possible without the help of several people—my friend Collin helped produce some songs and engineer sessions, the absolute genius Stephen Kaye mixed the album and recorded the bass for ‘g(url)’ and Dave Cooley (J Dilla, Blood Orange, Yves Tumor, Tame Impala, Paramore, etc.) mastered the album. Liminal Spaces sounds epic and is everything I hoped it would be.”

“‘Coldish’ is the very first track where I chose to be experimental with my sound and add a ‘pop’ twist,” zzzahara says about the new track. “The arrangement is different as well, it has three verses and one chorus. Definitely a track that has evolved with time and has been worked on for the last 3-4 years. I first posted ‘Coldish’ in 2018 on soundcloud and it had a few thousand plays. I am happy to have revamped this track and have it out on the record.”

Liminal Spaces features previously shared tracks “julia,” “bulletproof,” featuring Los Angeles-based musician and producer Mareux, “get out of la,” “lust,” “gurl” and “cupid’s out tonight,” which FLOOD calls “a playfully bitter fantasy about a less-than-helpful evil cousin of cupid,” while American Songwriter calls it “mysterious and riveting,” comparing zzzahara’s voice to an “ancient secret.”

Additionally, they will celebrate Liminal Spaces with a special Twitter listening party co-hosted by Tim Burgess of The Charlatans on October 26 at 12pm PT/3pm ET. They will also play an album release show at L.A.’s Lodge Room on November 13—get tickets here—which follows a recently wrapped run of dates in support of Luna Li with stops at Brooklyn’s Sultan Room, San Francisco’s Rickshaw Stop and L.A.’s The Echo.

Born to Filipino and Mexican parents and raised in Highland Park where they still reside, zzzahara is the moniker of queer songwriter and guitarist Zahara Jaime. Growing up in Los Angeles, they felt disconnected from Southern California’s predominantly straight white male rock scene and discovered making music as a way to process the experience of living in an ever-gentrifying city.

They became the touring guitarist for Eyedress aka Idris Vicuña in 2018, which spawned the collaborative duo The Simps, who released their Siblings LP earlier this year. Following their solo debut EP Simp.Wave in 2021, zzzahara signed to Lex Records and put the finishing touches on their forthcoming debut album, a collection of songs about queerness, love, lust, absurdism and feeling lost that trace their stylistic and emotional evolution from childhood through present day.