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UP LATE’s
new EP
‘TOTAL FUCKING DARKNESS!’
is out today

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Praise for UP LATE:

“Through fusing Pasalic’s emo-punk and trap backgrounds together, Up Late is filling the gap within the Australian music industry where no other artist seems to be crossing these two genres.” MILKY

“…hooks that hit you hard in the feels and stick with you for days.” Life Without Andy

“one of the most interesting artists on UNFD’s ever-evolving roster.” Music Feeds

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Straddling lines of metal, punk, hip hop, rap and those blurred in between, TOTAL FUCKING DARKNESS! is the sophomore EP from UNFD’s resident genre bender, Up Late, out in full today.

As its title suggests, the TOTAL FUCKING DARKNESS! EP encapsulates deep areas of pain and darkness for its creator Up Late, AKA multi-talented artist Max Pasalic. Across its six tracks we find him confronting habits of self-destruction (‘DIVA’) and battling the frustrations of growing up in a small, uninspired town (‘DIRT BIKE’). But despite this, TFD! is dripping in self-awareness, hyperbole and humour – it’s Pasalic’s perfectly contradictory and confusing dream release.

In fact, TOTAL FUCKING DARKNESS! is everything his 13-year-old self would want it to be. Desperate to be a non-conforming musician, Pasalic recalls his creative urges being suffocated and undermined from an early age. TOTAL FUCKING DARKNESS! is permission sent from Up Late back to that 13 year-old kid to be the exact artist he pleases.

Up Late on the TOTAL FUCKING DARKNESS! EP: “This EP isn’t written for a front to back listen. It’s not about a cohesive selection of songs, it’s not about crafting the perfect product, it’s not about some bigger-than-thou thematic concept or social critique. I wrote this EP just as I scribbled “Bring Me The Horizon” and “Three 6 Mafia” logos on the same high-school notebook. It’s about capturing that crashing of genre, that manic 13 year old kid who’s just searching for new music, searching for culture and wanting to be a part of it,” Max shared. “It’s about listening to Silverstein for the first time, listening to Kanye for the first time. I’m not saying this EP is even remotely as good as ‘Discovering The Waterfront’ or ‘808s and Heartbreaks’, but what I am saying is that I wrote it believing that it could become a gateway. A gateway to different sounds, cultures and genres for you. It could become the EP that returned you to that same 13 year old kid who was excited for anything that reverberated in their eardrums, no matter how different or weird that sound was.

“TOTAL FUCKING DARKNESS! is about bottling those moments in time for Nat (Sherwood, collaborator) and I. I wrote this whole EP with Nat in the same 6×4 metre room between late 2020 – to mid 2021. You can hear our music tastes change, morph and shift with every song. One song I might be screaming at the top of my lungs, the other I’m singing, another I could be rapping. We made sure we stayed curious, hungry, and excited for every moment we had in that studio. I wanted to interpret Nat and I’s childhood, our interests, our influences – as if the 13 year old versions of us took over our bodies and made whatever they wanted. I love that there’s imperfections, contrasts and even contradictions all over these 6 songs. Now that I look back and think about it, maybe there is a theme to the record – be who you want to be in that moment, even if it contradicts who you were yesterday. Do what you want.”

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UP LATE
~ TOTAL FUCKING DARKNESS! ~
OUT NOW VIA UNFD HERE

TRACKLIST:

1. DIVA
2. YOU PEAKED IN HIGH SCHOOL FT. DXRMANT
3. TOTAL FUCKING DARKNESS! FT. WXRMZ
4. DIRT BIKE
5. HEARTSICK
6. TIDAL WAVE (FORTRESS THEME)

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Follow UP LATE

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About Up Late:

There are few in the Australian music scene with a more polarising baptism of fire than Up Late, the monicker of Wollongong artist Max Pasalic. Introduced to hardcore and rap at 11, before balancing a stacked touring schedule, production sessions and high-school studies by 17, Pasalic then turned his attention to his own vocal abilities and found break out success on triple j with his early heavy band After Touch.

In 2020 Pasalic brought together his wide and varied background to his first solo project, Up Late. After debuting the project with a knockout entry into triple j’s DIY Supergroup comp in May that year, Up Late  scored an honourable mention among 900+ other entrants, a nomination as one of the “10 most exciting discoveries of 2020” by triple j and nods from local music media including Pilerats, Life Without Andy, Music Feeds, Blunt Magazine + more who would call him ‘2020’s break-out’.

An intriguing mix of influences underpin the Up Late sound. From touching on elements of heritage acts likes Kanye West and Silverstein, to drawing comparisons to some of today’s biggest alternative big hitters like Machine Gun Kelly, Mod Sun, nothing,nowhere. and City Morgue – Up Late simply refuses to be pinned to one box.

Following his 2020 EP STARS, 2021 finds Up Late has just released his jam-packed sophomore effort TOTAL FUCKING DARKNESS! now via UNFD.

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AMNPLIFY – DB