Copenhagen-based artist In Atlas blends electronically driven post-punk with a dark disco sensibility, balancing raw energy with a playful, offbeat approach. Her upcoming album Hyperreal, due November 5th via Detriti Records, explores escapism, dreams and imagined worlds against the backdrop of an increasingly absurd reality. Moving between dancefloor-driven rhythms and darker synth textures, the record examines the tension between fantasy and the world outside, finding beauty in the strange and unsettling.
Today, we premiere the album’s second single, “Never Rain.”
The second single from the album, “Never Rain,” captures this spirit through a seductive mix of synth-driven sounds, punk energy and dark disco grooves. Built around the idea of delusion and the pull of an alternate reality, the track pairs an infectious, danceable feel with a distinctly off-kilter atmosphere. Released today, October 15th, “Never Rain” offers another glimpse into the playful yet unsettling world of Hyperreal.
Interview with In Atlas
Your music combines electronically driven post-punk with a dark disco sensibility. How did you arrive at this sound, and what influences have shaped it along the way?
I’ve always loved the energy of punk.
It shaped me from an early age, when I started coming to “Ungdomshuset” – a former squat in Copenhagen, where I was introduced to the punk scene.
Later on, in my twenties I moved to Athens, met and worked with Venus Volcanism in our band ‘V.V.I.A.’ – this has also been very formative for me and the way I approach music. Athens is home to possibly one of the most thriving darkwave/industrial scenes, which I was instantly drawn to and I have spent hours and hours immersed in this energy in the Athenian nights.
However lots of new darkwave and synth based music obviously has strong references to the 80’s and I wanted to work a bit around that. I wanted to do something more snot nosed and with slightly more jest, for the upcoming record.
Weaving together these different influences gave me a nice framework for making the record. It was also very important to me that the album works well live, because I feel like that’s where we can still share some of the most potent experiences.
“Never Rain” explores the idea of being completely delusional and living in another world. What inspired this track?
The story behind Never Rain is based on an episode from when I was 20. I had been struggling with mental health issues for a while and it culminated in several psychotic episodes.
One night in February I was sitting in a bar with my former boyfriend and some friends. Suddenly I got it into my head that I had to find strawberries _right now_ or otherwise I would get cancer. My boyfriend, who didn’t know what else to do, therefore came along with me, biking out in snowy Copenhagen in the middle of February. Of course we didn’t find any berries and later that night I somehow returned to my senses.
Thankfully, psychoses for me belong to the past, but they have made me aware of how the mind can play tricks on you and make you go down some pretty strange or dark paths.
Your upcoming album Hyperreal explores escapism, dreams, and worlds of our own making, while also touching on the tension between fantasy and reality. What connects these themes across the album, and what did you want to explore through them?
I think seeing just one atrocity after the other, one crisis after another and maybe the fact that they are instantly broadcast to us through social media and otherwise.
Wars, genocide, the destruction of the nature etc. It’s heartbreaking to see and it’s impossible to truly take it all in, so I inevitably have to withdraw periodically into these fantasy worlds, for example through music.This can come with a sort of hangover of feeling guilty about looking away for a second and not being just fully immersed in the horror of it all.
However I think everybody needs some type of escapism, also to avoid burning out. But the feeling of guilt of course also comes from the awareness that some people don’t have that luxury, which is truly heartbreaking. Although there’s vast beauty in the world, it all feels completely absurd at times, and I try to put that on display on this record.
You describe your music as “flowers that fester for the new millennium,” a phrase that feels both beautiful and unsettling. What does this image mean to you, and how does it reflect your approach to music and visual identity?
Despite the infinite potential for beauty that humans hold, we can be an utterly lame species with an unmatched capability for destruction, and currently it feels like we’re swinging towards the dark extreme.
With so many people scrambling to figure out how to either literally survive or for others how to turn the tide. “Flowers that fester for the new millennium” is about the experience of beauty in decay.
Decay is part of a lifecycle, turning something once beautiful into sustenance for something new to grow. And the process of decay can in itself be a beautiful thing.
This also ties back to what I said earlier, about embracing some of the core parts of this sound that were established in past decades, but trying to breathe some new life and perspective into the music.
In terms of the visual side of things, I again lean into the absurdity of things, trying to join the experiences of the world at large and these fantasy worlds we use to escape it.
With Hyperreal arriving in November, do you feel the album marks a turning point in your artistic direction, or is it more a continuation of ideas you have been developing? What would you like to explore next?
I feel like this record is the most representative of who I am and where I come from. It gets closer to my core in some way.
The sound on Hyperreal comes from a place deep within me, an energy or approach to life basically, that has been there as long as I remember. It is the tone of the urge to challenge conformities and fundamentally to enforce playfulness into the absurdity of life – especially in this, the most absurd time to be alive.
Alexander (my producer) and I have developed a kind of language together that is almost wordless at times, but we understand intuitively where we’re going when we write together, it feels both natural and playful. We also recently had a child so let’s see if the next record isn’t even more playful, maybe it’ll just be a bunch of babbling noises and a drum machine.
Follow In Atlas & Detriti Records
In Atlas – Never Rain
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