FEATURE: Mondern-Day Queens: Ecca Vandal

FEATURE:

Modern-Day Queens

Ecca Vandal

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MANY people have probably heard…

of Ecca Vandal, though there are some who are not aware of the brilliance of this wonderful artist. Rather than include her in Spotlight – as she has been recording for a while now -, I thought best to include her in Modern-Day Queens. As that is what she is. It is a good time to connect with her music, as she released the album, LOOKING FOR PEOPLE TO UNFOLLOW, on 22nd May. I am going to come to some recent interviews with Vandal. One from late last year, and a recent one ahead of the release of her latest album. I am going to start out with Earmilk and their article that reacted to news of the announcement of LOOKING FOR PEOPLE TO UNFOLLOW:

“Rock audiences are always looking for what’s next, especially when it comes to women pushing the genre forward. Two decades ago, it was Paramore, led by Hayley Williams. More recently, artists like boygenius, St. Vincent, Japanese Breakfast, Willow, and Courtney Barnett have carved out space on their own terms across indie, alternative, pop, and traditional rock. Now, Ecca Vandal is stepping into that lineage with her upcoming album LOOKING FOR PEOPLE TO UNFOLLOW, out May 22 via Loma Vista Recordings.

To put it mildly, Ecca Vandal is shock value personified. Her bright blue hair and micro bangs, eclectic vintage style, and inconceivable vocal range (that shifts from soulful riffs to guttural scream-singing in the same bar) are only part of the draw. On paper, it might read like a rock artist starter pack, but in practice, it never feels forced. When she steps onstage, there’s a clarity to who she is. There’s no posturing, no performance of identity. And in that, there’s an unspoken invitation for listeners to meet her with the same honesty.

A Sri Lankan Tamil–Australian artist, emerging from Melbourne’s DIY punk scene, Vandal has built a reputation for high-energy performances and a sound that resists easy categorization. Pulling from punk, hip-hop, jazz, and electronic, her music moves with intention, often exploring identity, power, independence, and self-expression without settling into a single lane. Drawing from artists as different as Nina Simone and Fugazi, Vandal has long leaned into contrast. This time, that instinct is sharpened into a central idea: subtraction—letting go of what drains your energy and distorts your sense of self.

“The systems. The trends. The illusions of connection. I find empowerment in being loud and noisy, especially as a woman in this global moment who grew up in a culture that told me I could not be those things,” she says.

That mindset shows up immediately in the song rollout. Her latest single, “SORRY! CRASH!,” lands with a kind of unfiltered energy that feels intentionally untouched, resisting the urge to be polished into something more digestible. It follows earlier releases—“CRUISING TO SELF SOOTHE,” “BLEED BUT NEVER DIE,” "BLEACH," "MOLLY," and “THEN THERE’S ONE”—that together point toward a record that supports saying what you feel exactly how you want to, delivery be damned.

A powerhouse lyrical anthem, “BLEED BUT NEVER DIE" is a breakout song on the record. It showcases various aspects of her vocals, including a smooth singing voice in the bridge following a rock-n-roll heavy chorus. The stretched lullaby-ish lyrics "I'm done with fools like you" juxtaposed against the scream chorus is subversive for a stereotypical rock song and it works excellently.

“CRUISING TO SELF SOOTHE" is a fan favorite record. The high-pitched shriek paired with the pumped-up electric guitar and intense drumming that opens the song pulls you in immediately! Vandal is almost saying, I won't and can't be boxed in.

The song “THEN THERE’S ONE” has a distinctly different flair. Coming in at just 1 minute and 19 seconds, she gets straight to the point. With just vocals and a synthesizer, she showcases the musical appetite of her South Asian culture in electronic form.

A big part of Vandals message comes from how the album was made. She recorded and produced the project alongside Richie Buxton in his childhood bedroom in bayside Melbourne.

“We cut out everything that didn’t serve us, the timelines, the metrics, the pressure to ‘stay visible’ online. We tuned out of the feed and turned inwards," she says.

"In Richie’s childhood bedroom, we built a tiny home studio, four walls that became a universe. The internet was painfully slow, so we were truly disconnected from the online game. Deep in bayside Melbourne, far from our inner-city friends, that little room became our whole world for nearly two years. It held all our chaos and all our clarity, a little ‘playpen’ where we could live, play and experiment like teenagers again. We started making things with our hands again, tangible, imperfect, and real. We wanted to celebrate long-form, the idea of an album as a whole body of work, while the world was chasing 15-second snippets and algorithm-friendly noise. So we left behind the room packed with industry chatter and opinions, and created our own little haven. And honestly, it was magic. The best decision we’ve ever made.”

That sense of intention—of pulling back to move forward—sits at the center of LOOKING FOR PEOPLE TO UNFOLLOW. Even as Vandal steps onto bigger stages, including her upcoming Coachella debut later this month, stage show at Lollapalooza, and a tour supporting Deftones, the project feels grounded and deliberate. It’s less about being everywhere at once, and more about choosing exactly where and how she wants to be heard”.

The first interview I am coming to is from Alternative Press. They write how, although Ecca Vandal is not new to the industry and released her first recording back in 2014, 2025 was her breakout year. It was a good moment to spotlight an extraordinary and super-talented artist. In terms of sound and talent, I don’t think that there is anyone like her on the scene. You can imagine her working alongside some of her contemporary heroes very soon:

“Born in South Africa with a very traditional upbringing, Vandal was exposed to an eclectic array of music — however disparate it may seem from her current sound. “In the home, it was gospel music. It was soul music. It was traditional South African music, and it was also Sri Lankan music because my parents came from Sri Lanka before they came to South Africa.” And though punk offered a real perspective shift years later, much of these early sounds have seeped into her work today. There is, I realize quickly, authenticity and self-knowledge deep in the bones of everything Vandal does. “Gospel music is heavily choral, and everyone's singing in beautiful harmony at the top of their lungs. It's so expressive, and that's something that I learned from that music as a kid. How to really express yourself fully… I would say Sri Lankan music is incredibly beat-driven. It's party music and incredibly fun. You’ve probably heard those rhythms done so beautifully by M.I.A. It's called Baila, celebration music — and that was the music that we partied to as kids.” She takes time thinking of each answer — it’s been years since Vandal has done an interview, though the nerves she warned me of have yet to show up. She’s fluid, honest, and intuitive — just like the version of Vandal that’s gone viral in our feeds.

Though she has siblings, they are older, growing up was a solitary experience, especially when it came to finding an identity. Left to her own devices, sourcing of her own music and style rested entirely on Vandal’s shoulders. “My friends were looking to other people, and I really wanted to find icons that I could follow. But I honestly didn't really resonate with a lot of people… I just was more interested in the way people express themselves.” I notice Vandal rarely, if ever, seems to complain — everything comes with a hefty side of gratitude. “I just had a lot of time on my hands as a child. I was sad that I couldn't go to the club with my sisters, so I had my own little party at home.” Alone, Vandal pored obsessively through whatever records were within reach, without a mentor, but also without a voice in her ear dictating the good versus the bad, in versus out. Vandal sought nothing but an expression she could relate to. And she first found that in jazz.

“No one was telling me that jazz was cool. I just realized that it made me feel something, and I wanted to know a lot more about it,” she says, wide-eyed. Allowing her new passion to run rampant, Vandal secretly auditioned for jazz music school in Australia — and was accepted, against her parents’ wishes. “That was the moment I was like, ‘Oh wow.’ It totally blew my mind and opened up a world of music that I didn't really know existed.” Quickly, she was a fixture hugging the wall at jazz clubs, consuming as much instrumental music as possible, though Vandal’s world was just beginning to expand. School soon led her to Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, and the broad landscape of vocal jazz. But though the world as she knew it had grown wider, Vandal’s scope was still narrow. Then one day, a friend handed her a Radiohead CD.

“That CD, and guitar-based music in general, changed my world… I became obsessed with punk music. I had a really shitty little guitar, so I started playing really badly into my Garage Band.” Coming from the refined technicality of jazz, she’d immediately found what she had been looking for. “I was drawn to the way that they just freely expressed themselves and used their voices — and that was exactly what they intended to do. It was loud. It was unapologetic. I wanted to do that myself. It inspired me to go, ‘I want to say something and express my own feelings in that way too.’”

When, as young people, we home in our interests — especially if it falls under the “alternative” umbrella — the next step is often to find the “scene.” Spawned from Black Flag in Hermosa Beach, there was the male-dominated Los Angeles hardcore scene of the 1980s. In the early aughts, emo’s third wave — primarily straight, white kids — held communion on Warped Tour black tops and in MySpace forums. The 2010s saw a tight, exclusive, and drug-addled network of American Apparel-ed folks holding court in downtown NYC.

“By this time, I was in Australia, so I didn't really find myself within specific communities or scenes at all. I didn't really feel like I fit into any scenes there. I grew up in a very white neighborhood. I went to a very white school. I didn’t feel like I quite had a place to go, even though I was discovering alternative music. It didn't feel like I was quite included in that space. It was just me discovering all of this stuff on my own. Community is super important to music and to art, but also, I'm not really interested in ‘scenes because I think that really separates a lot of people, especially for people of my skin color and women as well, you can feel very unwelcome in certain spaces. So I'm not about scenes at all, but I definitely believe in community and building community. I'm all about that. I'm still finding my community. If I'm honest, I'm still finding who that is and where that fits in the world. That's why I love traveling so much”.

What really grounds her has been the people she’s surrounded herself with. And like everything, intention is at play — “It's really important that I surround myself with the right people… I feel like if I can have a little bit of a family travel with me, that's everything. It's really kind of a family band in a way.” But though she’s been rightfully particular about the inner circle, its bounds are flexible for the right fit. “I'm really drawn to people who have an opinion and who are really strong within themselves,” she explains. “People who've had the experience before me and who are willing to share it and to give me advice freely. Because I've been around a lot of people who have had the experience but don't necessarily want to share their experience or their story.”

That’s another thing Vandal hasn’t had to wait long for. Her feed is a checkerboard of icons, now mentors — there she is, an arm wrapped around Travis Barker, or Shirley Manson, or Hayley Williams — though she describes to me how these aren’t passerby flicks with a famous person. Each photo pays homage to an “OG” who has played a role in Vandal’s ascent. “It's love and practical support. I've been on calls with them, asking for advice. They give me real support, not just like, ‘Oh, I've reshared your video.’” In fact, it was Manson who bestowed one of the most important pieces of advice Vandal has yet to receive: “Don’t change a thing”.

Prior to coming to a new feature and interview from The Guardian, I do want to drop in a live review from LOUDER. They observed how Ecca Vandal was a breath of fresh air and a star in the making. I agree that “she's got the songs, the skills, the attitude and the aura to become alt.rock's next 'new' star”:

“If you search on YouTube, there's a seven year old video of Ecca Vandal brilliantly covering Rihanna's Bitch Better Have My Money (with a bonus coda involving Kelis' Milkshake) for Australian radio station Triple J's Like A Version series. We bring this up not simply to illustrate the South Africa-born, Melbourne-based singer's vocal dexterity, and excellent taste in music, but to point out that although she's still very much an emerging artist, Vandal hasn't been fast-tracked for success, and has already put in hard yards: in fact, her earliest singles emerged a full ten years ago.

Having just performed at Reading and Leeds festivals, there's no real need for Vandal to be playing two nights at the 150-capacity Sebright Arms, but we're glad that she chose to do so. When she first emerged, the singer cited the likes of Bjork, Mr. Bungle, Fugazi and Deftones as influences, and while you'd be hard-pressed to hear elements of those artists in the succinct alt. hip-hop of Then There's One, or the fabulously raging pop-punk of Bleed But Never Die, those inspirations speak to her ambitions to follow her own path as an artist, shunning obvious or more easily-accessible routes to success.
She's a wonderfully dynamic, effervescent performer too, in-your-face and boundlessly energetic, holding the attention of everyone in the room from the moment she appears on this east London basement venue's non-stage, and retaining it throughout an all-action set.

Fred Durst has taken Vandal under his wing, having brought her on tour in Europe with Limp Bizkit earlier this year, regularly inviting her onstage, and back in April the singer shared a 'pinch me' moment on Instagram, revealing that she'd been jamming with Wes Borland and Rage Against The Machine drummer Brad Wilk at the legendary Rancho de la Luna studio in Joshua Tree, California. All of which suggests that Vandal isn't nervous or awed about the prospect of stepping up into the big leagues. Nights like this - and songs as good as the superb, utterly infectious Cruising To Self Soothe - suggest that she's more than ready.

The music business is notoriously cruel and fickle, but it'd be great to see her given the opportunity to shoot her shot”.

I am writing this ahead of LOOKING FOR PEOPLE TO UNFOLLOW, so some more reviews might come to light between now and when this is published. Though there is one I have found and want to include. I am moving now to The Guardian and their recent conversation with a brilliant Australian artist who should definitely be in your sight. Go and listen to her extraordinary music. Her anticipated and extraordinary new album is a “punchy rejection of ‘faux-sincerity’ and music being reduced to TikTok-able snippets”:

“On the first Friday in May, a procession of tattooed, pierced and mostly 20-something devotees crowded into a beers-and-burgers dive bar in Sydney’s Newtown. What was originally billed as a listening party for Ecca Vandal’s second album, Looking For People to Unfollow, had evolved into a surprise live set. Bounding onstage, Vandal was a blur of movement and brilliant blue hair, locking eyes with fans in the front row as she, alongside bassist Richie Buxton and drummer Dan Maio, tore through new material with garage-band intensity. Less than 24 hours later, the trio swapped the intimacy of Newtown for an arena where they opened for Interpol and Deftones.

Despite the ease Vandal projects in rooms of any size, the pre-show jitters never disappear. “It’s a very challenging set that we play – musically, physically and vocally,” Vandal says. “Playing music people have never heard before is also a really big challenge. But those nerves just disappear when people are showing you love.”

There’s been a lot of love coming Ecca Vandal’s way of late, thanks to a run of standout singles including Cruising to Self Soothe and Bleed But Never Die. When I meet her at a busy Newtown cafe days after the two Deftones shows, she is still processing the long road to releasing an album she fully believes in. “It’s about to come out in a few weeks, but it’s been a journey of four years,” she says.

Those four years – during which Vandal went “completely offline” – began with a period of soul-searching after her 2017 self-titled album and guest spots with artists including Hilltop Hoods, Alice Ivy and Sampa The Great. While moving freely between genres in those years, she says, “I had a lot of people saying, ‘You’ll be really successful if you just pick a lane.’” She decided instead to do what she wanted.

Vandal began working on the new album in the Melbourne apartment she shared with Richie Buxton, her partner in both music and life. Making music in a tiny apartment, however, became untenable: “I was trying to track really, really heavy vocals [and] we got knocks on our door going, ‘Can you keep it down?’”

The pair decamped to Buxton’s parents’ house down the road and set up in a garage without an internet connection. “We were like kids again, messing around with instruments, trying things out,” she says. “I didn’t have to keep anyone in touch with what we were doing.”

Those intimate recording sessions found her “the most raw I’ve ever been lyrically”. Inspired by Buxton’s beats and riffs, she channelled a tangle of her own emotions and experiences as a woman of colour against the backdrop of seismic world events such as the murder of George Floyd. At the core of the album, she says, is a “search for true connection” and “trying to fight against the faux-sincerity of the online world”.

Midway through the Newtown listening party, Vandal’s manager stepped onstage to gently inform the room that the second half would shift away from rock and into more beat-driven territory. Vandal hopes fans will engage with the album as a whole. During the writing process, she says, she and Buxton “were noticing that the world was just so obsessed with 15-second snippets. To me, that was really uninspiring. I just wanted to celebrate long form again.”

Looking For People to Unfollow is also the strongest showcase yet of Ecca Vandal’s richly textured, powerful voice, equally at home on hip-hop hooks and punk howls – a “guttural and disordered” register and “the complete opposite of, like, polish and refinement and beauty”.

What was the best year for music, and what five songs prove it?

1993. Oh My God – A Tribe Called Quest; Method Man – Wu-Tang Clan; My Name is Mud – Primus; 93 ‘Til Infinity – Souls of Mischief; Serve the Servants – Nirvana/

What music do you clean the house to?

Anything by Aphex Twin

What’s the song you wish you wrote?

All I Need by Radiohead

What is the last song you sang in the shower?

Singin’ in the Rain

If your life was a movie, what would the opening credits song be?

Bitch Better Have My Money

What underrated song deserves classic status?

Multi-Love by Unknown Mortal Orchestra

What is a song you loved as a teenager?

Björk’s Hyper-ballad. Still love it today

What song do you want played at your funeral?

Out of Time by Blur

What is the best song to have sex to?

Left & Right by D’Angelo”.

I will come to a review of LOOKING FOR PEOPLE TO UNFOLLOW. A deserved and undoubtable Modern-Day Queen who is going to continue to grow and I cannot wait to see where her career takes her, LOOKING FOR PEOPLE TO UNFOLLOW could well stand with the best albums of this year. Given how many people are behind her and the quality of sound, Ecca Vandal is a sensation! If you are new to her, then I would suggest you follow her. Currently touring and heading to Europe soon, she will come to the U.K. on 28th June for Outbreak Festival.

CLASH shared their review of LOOKING FOR PEOPLE TO UNFOLLOW. I was not aware of Ecca Vandal before his year, so I am listening back to her 2017 eponymous album. Since then, she has released singles. There is a lot of justifiable excitement around her new album. A hugely admired and respected artist:

“With her eponymous debut album in 2017, Ecca Vandal had established herself as a genre-bending force to be reckoned with. The Sri Lankan, South African-born, Melbourne-based artist remained unconcerned with fitting into preconceived parameters and instead, leaned into the thrill of travelling from one sound to the next, honing an eclectic, diverse sound. After the album’s release, Vandal began to separate herself from the outside world, eventually going offline for four years and, joined by her producer/collaborator Richie Buxton in his childhood bedroom-turned-studio, the seeds of ‘LOOKING FOR PEOPLE TO UNFOLLOW’ were planted.

Such an immersive process is unsurprising, considering the insular world that Vandal’s music channels, one that is deeply personal while also tied to larger, universal commentaries on politics, identity and more. “I find empowerment in being loud and noisy especially as a woman in this global moment who grew up in a culture that told me I could not be those things,” Vandal shared, in a statement announcing her sophomore release. ‘LOOKING FOR PEOPLE TO UNFOLLOW’ hears Vandal’s self-assured voice soar across an expansive 17-track album, which fluctuates from jolting punk melodies to softer meditations.

‘LOOKING FOR PEOPLE TO UNFOLLOW’ can roughly be split in half. The first opens with an immediacy: ‘EYES SHUT’ hears guitars and drums reminiscent of an old MTV promo, as Vandal tackles the privileged and wealthy. “They’re playing God / And saying nothing’s wrong,” she warns. ‘SORRY! CRASH!’, the album’s lead single, carries the same energy; I’m reminded of Idles’ ‘War’ in its thundering percussion. “Light my dread up in neon,” Vandal commands, “I gotta get my name all up in lights.” It’s an evocative exposure of the in-between of chaos and control, and a highlight on the album.

Vandal’s roots in skater culture strengthen as the album continues. From the viral hit ‘CRUISING TO SELF SOOTHE’ that pays homage to skaters in its sound and visuals, to the clear pop-punk parallels in ‘BLEED BUT NEVER DIE,’ each song rings like the perfect melody to glide along to. It is clear that Vandal’s musical roots are in jazz music; her ear for such melodies and ability to find the right groove in a chosen song is clear.

Then, about midway through with ‘OKAY NOT TO BE OKAY,’ we ease into the second half of the album with a synth-driven tune, short but sweet with a cry for connection in the midst of feeling lost: “Screaming hello / To find my echo / ‘Cos we’re still chasing / To feel.” The trip-hop immersion of ‘THEN THERE’S ONE’ is the standout of the album — even at just over a minute long, the song is bound to get stuck in your head, happily so, and we yearn for it to be even longer.

‘BLEACH’ settles into the second half with the perfect blend of Vandal’s array of sounds, hip-hop meets punk meets pop. The dance-driven beats continue on ‘DO IT ANYWAY,’ playfully upbeat with a story of throwing all caution to the wind — for better or for worse. The album closes with two politically-charged anthems: ‘GHOSTS’ addresses historical whitewashing, rejecting empty promises and in turn, reclaiming power: “We’ll tear down the statues made of stone,” Vandal declares, “We’re living facts that brown and black is gold.” If those in power will not listen, as they claim to do, Vandal will make certain that she is heard. The final track is ‘CAME HERE FOR THE LOOT,’ a dismantling of oppressive forces and false idols. Vandal challenges greed, conspiracy theories and more, and with a nu metal blend of hip-hop melodies and abrasive guitars, the album closes with a slow melodic unwind, and Vandal’s final words: “I won’t wait.”

Always unpredictable, and defiantly so, ‘LOOKING FOR PEOPLE TO UNFOLLOW’ hears Vandal elevate her eclecticism to new heights, with lyrical storytelling that stands politically and socially aware, while embracing the fun of contrasting melodies along the way.

8/10”.

I am going to round things up now. Anyone new to Ecca Vandal should go and listen to her music. LOOKING FOR PEOPLE TO UNFOLLOW will be out by the time this is published. Always eclectic and constantly moving, CLASH’s words about how Vandal’s voice “elevate her eclecticism to new heights”. That she does have this political and social conscience, but she can also be personal and there is this fun and energy weaving through her music. Incredible melodies and real spark. I think VERTICAL WORLDS might be my favourite song from LOOKING FOR PEOPLE TO UNFOLLOW. Whichever song of Ecca Vandal’s is your top choice, you can’t deny she is an artist in her own league. A big reason why I wanted to…