OUT NOW WITH NEW VIDEO
Brisbane-based pop savant Stocker returns with her first single in two years, boldly reintroducing herself to Australia and the world with the epic video for Angel. 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 in Angel – a tongue-in-cheek break-up anthem, imbued with 1970s occult Australia sensibilities & blended with her vulnerable songwriting style.
Describing the track, Stocker says, “Angel explores what it would be like if we leaned into our revenge fantasies. Would you sleep with your ex’s favourite rapper? Date their best friend? When I was in a relationship with someone who treated me terribly, I kept finding myself thinking, “If I were with ‘Angel’, would he treat me like this?”. Turns out he treated me much better.”
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 Angel.
“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.”
Angel – and the rest of Stocker’s upcoming EP – treads this line between the veneer of pastoral perfection, and the existential horror of living in alpine isolation, with reckless abandon. “The song was very emotionally charged when I wrote it, 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?
Stocker (fka Bria) got her start in hyperpop – DJing Minecraft festivals including Uncultured World during the pandemic & opening for fellow Australian scene stalwarts Ninajirachi & Daine. In 2021 she burst onto the scene with her debut single Taking It Off, landing support slots for Aussie pop favourites Sycco, Wiigz, Charley, Drax Project, DVNA & Prophecy Girl, alongside international artists like Alice Longyu Gao & Sebii. Speed Dial, a collaboration with Moss, received an official nomination in Triple J’s 2021 Hottest 100; and her latest release Rodeo saw her become a finalist for Triple J’s 2022 DIY Supergroup competition; garnering praise from AusPop, LiveWire and ABC.
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