Photo/Supplied
Brisbane-based pop savant Stocker today releases her debut EP Lip Locked, with new video Haunting out now. A longtime star of Australia’s TikTok set & armed with a following of 50,000, Stocker’s bubbly online persona is subverted by the sonic and aesthetic themes of her new project - Lip Locked grapples with themes of surveillance, 3rd wave feminism, 1970s small town nostalgia, and above all the commodification of women as artists; all steeped in the visual language of found footage and Australian horror. Stocker will be showcasing at Brisbane's BIGSOUND in September, immersing fans in the Lip Locked experience.
Stocker says, “This EP feels like a prologue into the world of Stocker; the first instalment of her Australian Horror Story. Music has
always been my emotional outlet for the horrors of girlhood, allowing me to spill my guts to anyone who could listen.
Hence the title - Lip Locked. I whispered my secrets into this EP. I’m here to kiss and tell.”
Stocker wants to tell you a very Australian Horror Story. Returning after a two year hiatus and a name change, the Brisbane-based pop savant (fka Bria) boldly reintroduces herself to to the world with the epic debut EP, Lip Locked.
“Coming back is daunting, but I'm glad I took some time off after the name change”, Stocker ruminates. Spending her time
off the last two years writing music between stints in psychiatric care, Stocker found new inspiration in her own past
she had previously obscured. “I had so much light in my childhood. So many cool influences that I hadn’t tapped into.” As a kid Stocker rode her bike to the rotary markets to spend her
pocket money on collectable marbles while her friends played with Bratz; she learnt to sew to fix her vintage dress
collection while her contemporaries were getting into slime. “I actually had a similar upbringing to my mother's in the
70s. That’s why I stole her maiden name for this project.”
There is a dark side to this kind of perfect pastoral upbringing. Her paternal side of the family ended up going too far
down the rabbit hole - “My grandma is a kinesiologist and would teach me about guardian angels and meditation; and how
to find patterns in numbers and how to transfer energy.” They ended up joining a cult. While Stocker continued to grow
up in a bucolic haze, her father was simultaneously introducing her to horror films like Picnic at Hanging Rock. “I became obsessed with the occult and spiritual.”
Lip Locked treads this line between the veneer of pastoral perfection, and the existential horror of living in alpine isolation, with reckless abandon. “These songs were very emotionally charged when I wrote them, but right now it’s just a time
capsule for the person I was two years ago.” Besides, Stocker is in the business of excavating feelings, patterns & numbers whose existence is ambiguous at best. “If I say I broke up my worst relationship ever because an Angel descended from the heavens and told me to do so, how do you know that didn't happen? Maybe it’s all literal.”
Stocker’s new artist project reflects this push-pull upbringing; grappling with themes like surveillance, 3rd wave feminism and 1970s small town nostalgia - all steeped in the visual language of found footage and Australian horror. Above all though, Stocker’s new music explores the commodification of women as artists. Stocker in her lifetime has witnessed Margaret Atwood’s watcher become omnipresent - the panopticon of social media, where Stocker thrives, abhors a private space. “To be a woman now is to perform. How am I meant to know what is authentically me in the era of Eternal Surveillance? Would I enjoy reading if I knew no one would ever find out about it? Would I play video games if men didn’t praise me
for it?”
Embracing nu metal and grunge, marrying synths and organs, Stocker brings all her contradictions together for her thrilling new project coming this winter. No longer just ‘made
by TikTok’, Stocker is making music that ‘little Bria would be proud of’. Face your fears and join Stocker for the ride - what are you so afraid of?Photo/SuppliedLip Locked EP tracklist in full:
1. Cinema
2. Angel
3. Quick Switch
4. Haunting