smooch EP by Synthetic Children

This is me approaching the poppiest ideas I’ve ever had, 3 love songs that celebrate the corners of euphoria and growth I’ve encountered and held close to my chest in the last few years. These songs cherish what I care about in the midst of everything that’s markedly less joyous around me.

I have not reached the post-dreamscomethru eutopia I wanted to reach, a fantasy timeline marker I’ve often referred to since putting ‘everything’s perpetual’ out. It was a naive vision of how my transition might have gone, but what excitement and hope I do feel, see, and hear is represented in these songs. As I go to put it out now, maybe a year or so after first writing the lyrics and laying down demo beats, my self-confidence and state of mind both as a musician and as a woman, are laughably juxtaposed to the world that these tracks portray. But I think that’s why I need to just put it out there anyway instead of lingering on ‘a peeled orange’, to pointedly celebrate lifelines and smiles, the small things that mean everything (my girlfriend’s cow slippers that I’ve now adopted, the magical word ‘smooch’, and a paint by numbers we did together over a year that is now hung above my bed).

I want to keep moving and learning new things, and highlight the changes that I’ve seen in myself. So I’ve spent months learning how to mix in a way that might contrast with the murky dissociations of my previous releases, and focused on creating (hopefully) more exciting movements in my synths outside of what have become my signature washy soundscapes. Believe it or not, I turned my reverb pedal down from 100% wet for the first time ever on this project. I also really wanted to emphasise playfulness as being a central, combative ingredient in preventing myself from writing songs exploring the same headspace as the last two albums. Relearning how to have fun has been a surprising obstacle, both inside the drum machine and in the wider world, since transitioning and escaping constant dissociation. My relationship has been the foundation to that learning. I was kind of stuck in a depressive seriousness when I tried to write new music. This EP has been a breath of fresh air, a counterweight to the heaviness.

All the intentionality behind ‘smooch’ has been an act of treasuring the love I have in my life, despite everything, and it’s a defiance to that other part of my creative identity to even release this, so I’m genuinely quite proud of what these songs represent, and how they sound. Although I’ve undoubtedly compartmentalised emotions (into ‘smooch’ vs ‘like a peeled orange’ etc), they come from my same world, at the same time, and I didn’t want to let myself (or anyone who liked the previous work) down by only portraying some of who I am. So, I hope you can have some fun too, and feel confidence flowing back into your veins whilst dancing with me xx

In addition, I’m touring this EP with Diesel Jenny throughout July 2025, so keep your eyes peeled on socials + UTR for details, including sick tshirts available at the shows <3

Synthetic Children is a Te Papaioea based, hardware electronics project. Shifting swiftly between autotuned vulnerabilities and bubbling dance beats to murky atmospherics and anxious wonk, she has penchant for the rungle side of things.

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