January 24, 2025 |
Following her previous album Fucking and Dreaming, Trace‘s sophomore album T4Tears explores her heartfelt journey of self-discovery, as she boldly shares her experiences with raw emotion.
Trace takes a brave leap, marking a radical shift not only in content but also in sound. Drawing from the dynamic, electronic palette of Fucking and Dreaming, she paints a vivid landscape of different colours and emotion, taking her textured rhythms into a deeper and more vulnerable place. This album stays true to her signature dream-pop aesthetic while venturing into more intimate and personal themes, exploring her trans childhood, grief and the journey of healing.
Characterised by expansive instrumental arrangements and natural, organic textures, T4Tears’ delicate charm acts as a doorway to reconnect with her younger, trans self, incorporating the musical elements that defined her teenage years. Assembling a group of fellow queer artists and kindred spirits as collaborators, her “chosen family”, shines a light on the necessity of interdependence and collectively within queer communities. Trace’s album transcends personal storytelling, reflecting the shared experiences of trans and queer communities worldwide, while highlighting the vital role of community and connection.
The Cologne-based singer and songwriter crafts an album that takes listeners on an emotional rollercoaster, weaving a pop universe of atmospheric guitars, cutting-edge production and vocals that flow effortlessly. In My Hubris, featuring Berlin-based Romanian performer Cat Jugravu, she confesses, “I always thought that love is for the other and not for myself.” Later, in the triumphant pop-punk anthem Letters to Trace (13), she declares, “I want to love you better, now I’m holding letters in my hand.” The album closes with Ice Melts, a poignant reflection on embracing vulnerability. Through emotional honesty, the album channels rage, grief, and love into a singular vision of dream-pop artistry.
1. Who is Trace?
I am a trans woman who makes experimental, intimate music in which I try to carve out a space for trans mourning, trans rage, and trans longing. Among many other things lol.
2. Your new album, t4tears, explores the self in a radical way. What, in your opinion, is radical about your music?
In the best sense, my music doesn’t aim to appease or tie things up neatly. It reveals the gushing wounds of making and creating trans life – musically, lyrically, and aesthetically – aesthetically in an age where we’re constantly being told trans people should either be erased or that we have to be white cis-passing supermodels to be deemed worthy of any sort of attention or love or care.
3. How does re-visiting your younger self shape your creative process?
Well, in this specific case – and who knows if I’ll revisit my younger self in this way ever again – it shaped the creative process by forcing me to start fabulating. What would I actually like to say to my younger self? What might she want to say to me? What kind of music would accompany our encounters and conversations? What music did she listen to and how did that kind of listening inform how I approach making music now? How can I travel into the past and let her know she’s worthy of survival, and that we’ll keep each other safe?
4. What’s the wildest idea that made it onto this album?
Mmmmm… I think the conceptual idea of the album was kind of wild enough for me to handle lol. In general though, it was pretty wild to have so many different instrumentalists and vocalists on the album and having them all find their individual answers to the questions posed by the album’s concept. Now, when I listen to it, I just feel extremely lucky and grateful that we turned that wild dream into a reality.
5. What’s your comfort song?
That’s tough. There’s many, but definitely the latest Sade song that she wrote for her son, Izaak Theo, who is also trans.
6. Who is your ‘chosen family’?
My trans femme, trans masc, and non-binary siblings. My friends, most of whom are trans and queer. The people I choose to create life, joy, and resistance with. Definitely my partner and my partner’s cats.
7. Which song on t4tears was the most challenging for you to write?
As far as I remember, it was probably the last one, “Ice Melts.” Everything else was finished, and it was hard to leave the space I had created with and for my younger trans self. I also didn’t really know how to leave that space without feeling like I was closing all the doors forever.
8. Who was your ultimate style icon growing up?
I barely have memories of growing up. But probably someone like Brian Molko, haha. We all know Brian had strong trans femme energy back in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
9. Favourite lyric from the whole album?
That’s tough. But it would probably be this one that my friend Jenny Browne wrote and spoke on “everything I want to say is here”:
“this can be the body that I love / so i practice being held / being fucked / fuck me til the tears come / fuck me til the tears come / yes the tears come so easily so / i climb out of bed over the / people i have loved in / sequences of heartache / desperate for skin to slide in / skin / bodies are just skin / i look at mine / in the swimming pool underwater / it’s so beautiful in that moment”.
10. What’s next for you after T4Tears?
I guess just trying to survive, taking care of and protecting those I love amidst the continuous onslaught of fascism, and continuing to make music for as long as I can. In more concrete terms, I’m planning a choir album with my partner Ves and a duo album/EP with my friend Ráhel, who played the harp on t4tears. I also have two other half-finished projects sitting around, but I’m not sure if or when they’ll be released.
Photography by Thomas Lambertz.
