Erika Ever gives you precisely 12 seconds to prepare for turbulence on her debut single ‘2 Hours’. It starts with keys creeping into frame, tension building, and a vocal sample pinballing around before the seas part and the chaos begins: in swoops the bounce, guest vocalist Teether springs into action and for the next two minutes Ever does not let her foot off the gas.
It’s a striking first impression from an artist who has spent a long time preparing for this moment. For years, Erika Ever has been a driving force in Naarm’s dance community under the alias Chaotiic Good, running events, organising collectives and spinning genre-warping sets at any good dancefloor near you.
Reborn under a new moniker, Ever has hit the ground running as a producer with two banging singles released on NLV Records.
“I’ve been saying ‘I did a Halsey’, but then no one I talk to knows what that means,” she laughs over Zoom.
“No one I talk to knows that Halsey’s real name is Ashley!1 The letters are just jumbled. Erika Ever is just an anagram of my first name [Kiera] and some letters from my last name.”
Bookending her run as Chaotiic Good doesn’t mean Ever is disavowing her past life. Instead, she says her new era is part of building an “intentional world” to demarcate her identity as a producer.
“I love DJing, but I wanted to create a shift between just DJing and DJing as part of an artist project where I’m also producing music,” she says.
“I met so many cool people whilst DJing as Chaotiic Good so, while it’s a fresh start, I also want to bring those people with me.”
One of the first friends through the door is the aforementioned Teether, the London-via-Naarm emcee whose vocals on ‘2 Hours’ are brilliant, foreboding and magnetic. The pair first met a few years back when both were living in Melbourne’s west.2 Ever says it felt right to have Teether on her debut release, which she wanted to be an “oddball single”.
“I wanted to start with something that wasn’t just like, a ‘capital C Club track’, but it’s also a mix of everything I love about the club music I play — it’s got elements of Jersey Club, it’s a little bit cloud rap,” she says.
‘2 Hours’ threads a satisfying needle, subverting the simple dopamine hits with stranger, more intriguing choices at every turn. But it manages to take risks without ever losing its heart as a guaranteed firestarter in the club. Even when the keys are designed to land weird, or the chorus throws some noise over the top, ‘2 Hours’ never loses any of its bounce.
Ever’s follow-up single ‘Crash’, a collaboration with Sydney duo Porcelain Boy, is an entirely different proposition. The song is a thrilling take on the early 2000s Ministry of Sound compilations of Ever’s youth, mainlining the sugar hit and throbbing synths to superb effect. Two songs in, Erika Ever is already a producer with a masterful command of her craft.
Though her releases to date have covered vastly different territory — a trend she hints will continue — one connective thread is her production’s ability to draw new dimensions from her collaborators. On ‘2 Hours’, Teether is energised and ominous. Porcelain Boy turn ‘Crash’ into an inspired Robert Smith cosplay, their melodrama blooming under Ever’s watchful production.
Ever herself can’t put her finger on what she does to draw this out of her vocalists, wondering aloud whether it’s because “the beats are a bit weird.”
“I just gave them one option and said, ‘you can jump on it if you want’, and they just came back with something cool,” she says. “It’s not particularly calculated; it’s just sort of landed that way.”
What is more premeditated is how Erika Ever is rolling out the start of her production career. The two singles are the lead-in to what will be an debut EP, with remixes also en route. Along the way, Ever will take the stage for her first festival under her new name at the Geelong leg of Spilt Milk and will perform at industry mixer BIGSOUND in Brisbane.
It’s a busy roadmap, but Ever is well supported. Her label NLV Records, still riding high on a banner year led by Ninajirachi’s I Love My Computer, was just named Independent Label at the AIR Awards. It has solidified NLV Records, and its namesake founder Nina Las Vegas, as the best launching pad for dance producers in Australia.
“I really admire how Nina moves as an artist and DJ, as well as running a label in her own right,” says Ever. “I just sent her my demos and just wanted her feedback, I didn’t really expect she’d actually want to put them out.”
From here, tt’s not hard to see what sold Nina Las Vegas on the Erika Ever experience. She has an intuitive sense of how to make addictive dance music and she’s only just getting started. When I probe for more detail on the songs coming up, Ever is coy and reiterates that each song is very different to one another. The only through line she can disclose? “Its heart is in the club.”
‘Crash’ is out now via NLV Records. Buy here or stream here.
This hit me just as hard as the moment I realised Flo Rida was just Florida with a space, many years after I think everyone else figured it out.
Erika shouted out this article, which I will shoutout, in which Teether speaks with the GOAT music writer (and my good friend) Henry Owens about his love of Footscray.
such a fun chat! ty for having me <3