Cyra Wirth’s Tug of War
Cyra Wirth’s latest project cracks open with its self-titled track, “Tug of War”—a sort of phantasmagoric portrait of the EP as a whole. The darker, magnetic electro-thrum that syncopates the track, set against the high-pitched melody, crackles out into the EP’s most energetic and upbeat song, “Rollercoaster Rider.” Particularly cute and radiating an almost sickening glee mirrored perfectly by its lyrics: “It’ll have you throwing up by the end of the night/hands to the sky, feel like a paraglider/fall with the parachute, skydiver/up and down like a rollercoaster rider.” From there, things begin their descent into more abstract and spacious musicality. “As every track goes on, it just gets darker and darker. It's kind of a gradient I guess,” says Cyra, “I'd say emotionally, the context in which I'm making this music is less scattered.”
“I think musically, I've been kind of always chasing the same thing,” says Cyra. “I think every release, I'm getting closer to it. Like, it comes out in very different sounds and stuff, but again, it's like this world—this emotion. I feel like I'm getting closer every time. And I think I've really captured it on this."
Cyra holds most of the details for themselves but explains that the EP is structured to imitate the emotional tug of war she was living out at the time. “I dunno if I want to explain it a bunch. You'll hear it yourself when you listen, but like, you also don't have to,” says Cyra, alluding to several events that pockmarked that point of their life. “It was super sad shit… kind of hard to put into words. But basically, what I was feeling was this really intense tug of war emotionally.” The EP follows along those lines, playing on that binary of light and dark, from its poppy, upbeat beginnings, to a gradual fade into complete darkness.
When it comes to categorizing her music, Cyra usually defaults to the genre of hyperpop, though she does so a little reluctantly. “I honestly have mixed opinions on the label, and I only really attribute like, one of my songs to it. I don’t know—it’s such a specific thing that has homogenized a very wide array of sounds from a group of queer people making music online. More and more people have wanted to hop on it, and it’s all just been boiled down to a real shallow form of what it was. I mean, everyone is just trying to do 100 gecs now, you know?”
Cyra’s music certainly adopts some of the aspects of what’s popularized this sector of music; ingenuity, internet addiction, and a sort of tongue-in-cheek attitude about the whole endeavor. But her sources of inspiration range far beyond this. She lists artists from the surge scene, online labels like Dismiss Yourself, The Beatles, Bladee, and local grunge acts she grew up around, like The U-Men and Malfunkshun. “My friends are mostly huge music nerds and we’ll always be scouring for cool shit,” she says. “You can always find new stuff. There’ll be this guy from Montana, and he has like two followers on SoundCloud, but he's making like the dopest thing I've ever heard in my life.”
Tug of War specifically, is a little more focused, inspired by a handful of artists. “It’s pretty evident when you know who those artists are,” Cyra says. “And I mean, I have my distinctions, but Yabujin is definitely like, the biggest source. I was obsessed for a moment. I feel like I’ve taken a lot of what I liked about his music and developed it—made it a tool for the stuff I’m doing now, so it’s a lot more integrated than other things I try to learn from.”
The underlying thread here quickly makes itself known: Cyra is a little adventurer. She loves the limitless nature of knowledge, the first-hand discovery of it. Whether that’s in learning languages, trying new styles of music, or adopting new hobbies. She’s recently picked up basic HTML coding, making a website for her music. And her latest undertaking is in modular video synthesis. “I just like getting creative,” she says, “but then I also like spending all of my time online 'cause I’m just hopelessly addicted to the internet and like looking at what people are up to.” So much of what drives her has its intersection here. “I’m just trying to learn as much as possible,” she tells me, “cause I feel like that’s the point of life, to learn.”
For Cyra, music seems to be a proponent of that—constantly pushing her forward. “My dad has always had recording equipment and software. So, I mean, as long as I can remember it’s just been something I’ve had access to, which I’m very grateful for. I don’t know what I’d be doing right now otherwise… just kind of…be around, I guess,” she laughs.
When Cyra was 20, she started playing in bands with her dad. “I just didn’t do anything for a long time 'cause I never learned how to drive,” she says. “I was basically a shut-in for a while and he was really the one to drag me out to gigs and be like, ‘You gotta do some music.’” He’d eventually rope her into playing alongside him in a dad rock band, then another called Headwaves, in which the two played bass together. Now, nearly six years on, the two still play together in a Fleetwood Mac cover band called The Little Lies.
“It’s funny,” she says, “I’d originally wanted to do like, singer-songwriter shit. And then I was like, ok, that takes way too much work.” The video-game-like, heavy sort of pop she’s gravitated toward instead lends itself perfectly to experimentation. The recording of it all is a simpler process and usually more forgiving in making tweaks and adjustments. For her, it’s the ideal playground.
“I'm always trying to find things where there's like, knobs that I can turn, and little buttons to press and stuff. I think that's why I like programming my own music. Pedalboards and stuff are fun like that too. It just gets my brain going.” Her older releases exhibit this; a blend of spacious pop beats and punchy remixes tinged with a dark, contemplative undercurrent.
Of the six songs on Tug of War, Cyra's favorite is the EP's closer. The track, "Walk in Circles" features another local standout, Lonelygirl15. “Every time I'm working on it I just start crying,” Cyra laughs. “Lonelygirl's verse is just insane. And also cathartic to listen to because, you know, she is also trans, and she just hits these metaphors that just cut to the core of our experiences. I'm excited for everybody to hear it," she says, "but especially stoked for other trans girls to hear it.”
Cyra points out that being trans has also changed some aspects of her relationship with songwriting. For one thing, there are times she's felt almost at odds with her voice, pushing her to focus on more instrumental works. Only in more recent projects has Cyra begun to give vocals a stronger presence in her solo music. She's finding solace in modulating her voice, resulting in the pitched-up, breathy melodies and otherworldly vocal harmonies that dance effortlessly over her tracks.
Though this is also something to grapple with, making live shows something of a challenge. It can be draining, Cyra says, having your voice laid bare and projected right back out at you. “I can't really ignore that, you know? It's like the focus of my whole live performance. There are obviously practical limitations since I'm affecting my voice so much in the recordings. And then it’s also like, just an emotional issue.”
But part of what she’s relishing about her experience in the local music scene is cultivating safe spaces for those who feel othered. Now having been in several non-dad affiliated bands—the now defunct band Forever Chemicals and, more recently, the clowncore heavy-punk act Beautiful Freaks—she’s found herself immersed in one of Seattle’s most vibrant underground music scenes. “Freaks are kind of at the center of Seattle’s heavy queer scene right now,” she says. She’s only recently stepped away from playing alongside the band, but she accredits most of her current community and sense of belonging to having done so. The band in both their name and ethos, have built an environment that embraces the weird and unabashed. With many of their fans being younger and queer, Cyra sees just how extraordinary this is. “Growing up, I didn’t feel like I could be myself for the longest time, but seeing these kids at shows, having fun and just being themselves, however fucking weird that may look, it’s really so special.”
She’s finding that in a lot of things lately. Gratitude practically radiates out of her. “It’s wonderful,” she says, “right now is a really special moment, and I need to remember to cherish it. You know, I don’t know with everything that’s going on. Being queer in America, and the last couple of months, things have been crazy," says Cyra. "But we have each other right now.”
Cyra Wirth’s sophomore EP, Tug of War, is out now. Go check it out ;)
