After releasing my first full-length in November 2020 following four years of development hell, I had planned on taking a break from producing music due to experiencing writer’s block and generally being uncertain about the state of the world around me and the future of my artistic career. I had a plan already in place to put out feel good disco edits and remixes that had been previously completed (which I did throughout 2021 and 2022 via HOUZ) in order to share records that were funky and uplifting. Then, a curveball: December 2020 rolled around and I lost my day job that I had at the time due to the ongoing pandemic as we proceeded to enter the longest period of lockdown that Ontario had experienced up to that point. The anger and restlessness that was stewing in me was starting to boil over. I needed a release and something to express what I was feeling as I was essentially trapped in my walk-up apartment in downtown Toronto during a stay-at-home order. I knew I needed to use this time to channel this energy into pushing through my writer’s block as a new source of inspiration.



What began initially as a hard-hitting, fast-paced EP of intense and high energy techno and house quickly expanded into a new set of nine tracks that further dabbled with acid, bass, breaks and electro that were slowly completed between January 2021 and this past March. I wanted it to reflect the tension and desire our local dance music community had to experience nightlife again in it’s purest form and what a possible explosion of sounds old and new in a revitalized scene could feel like. I also wanted it to reflect the end of a decade of self-discovery and self-sabotage, a period in time where I believed that I had healed and was not a victim of the past that I had kept at bay for so long. Over the course of this record’s completion it dawned on me that not only did I no longer identify with the modus operandis of Frustra’s origins, I had to face everything I was running from. I no longer felt helpless or powerless in the same way that broken boy did when he came home from England in 2014. I had to accept that this decade of my life was one elongated trauma response to the events of my late teens.

After producing under this name for nine years off and on, this project will serve as the end for Frustra. I have now said everything I have wanted to say and have taken this as far as I can as an independent artist. It really feels like the right time to pull the trigger…I am beyond grateful for the journey I have had up to this point. This is the proudest I have ever been of anything I have created as a solo artist and I am really excited that I get to share this ending with everyone as intended.