Q&A: Baby Jane Releases Divinely Guided Debut Album ‘A Grave Marked Strange’
INTERVIEW
INTERVIEW
☆ BY KIMBERLY KAPELA ☆
Photography Credit: Max Durante
OVER THE YEARS, BABY JANE HAS HEARD IT ALL — “You should be less goth,” “You should be less macabre,” “You shouldn't talk about death,” “You should be less intense.” But her debut album, A Grave Marked Strange is her bold refusal to dilute her truth. Instead, it’s a radiant celebration of embracing her extremity and finding peace in feeling too much. With this project, Baby Jane opens the door for all the other intense people out there—the ones who feel deeply, live dramatically, and refuse to apologize for it.
With the release of her debut album A Grave Marked Strange, indie electronic artist Baby Jane emerges from the shadows of the underground and into the spotlight, unafraid to embrace the chaos, beauty and brutal honesty of her inner world. The 16-track record is a maximalist, genre-blending fever dream that fuses hardstyle, jumpstyle, witch house, hard bounce, and techno into something wholly cinematic and unapologetically strange.
Co-produced with War Tourism, A Grave Marked Strange is an intense and expansive listening experience—equal parts nightclub exorcism and theatrical monologue. Each track pulses with drama and distortion, weaving campy horror motifs with genuine emotional undercurrents. It's an album that dares to be both self-aware and deadly sincere, balancing stylized fantasy with raw vulnerability.
“I wrote A Grave Marked Strange about the feelings of such intensity that walk the line between life and death,” Baby Jane says. “It is the place where you meet your lover in pure bliss or agony outside the realms of convention and mundane life. At her core, Baby Jane is the protagonist I play in my fantasies; macabre and hopeless in nature, but holding out for reality to give her a reason not to slip into the other side.”
This duality—between fantasy and reality, indulgence and restraint—runs like a current throughout the record. Tracks plunge into distorted basslines and percussive madness, only to be lifted by sticky melodies, haunting synth lines, and lyrics that ache with romantic despair. It’s club music for the theatrical loner, a soundtrack for navigating one’s inner apocalypse with glitter in your tears.
A standout track, “End of the Night,” is a euphoric homage to 2000s Eurodance, delivering blistering hardstyle kicks and a nostalgic, anthemic hook. “‘End of the Night’ is my attempt at reviving the care-free nostalgia of 2000s Eurodance,” Baby Jane says. “Inspired by early memories of driving around with my mom listening to Russia’s hit dance station Evropa Plus, the synths and hardstyle kick are meant to feel like dancing all night in a Lithuanian disco thrown in a storage unit.”
Lyrically, the track explores the war between temptation and redemption, pairing club-ready beats with a spiritual conflict that plays out like a gothic novella. “Thematically, the song tells a story of the internal war of good and evil that occurs when you succumb to temptation, the fallout, and the plea for forgiveness,” she adds.
For Baby Jane, A Grave Marked Strange was a process of surrender as much as creation. “I really prayed every day and allowed a lot of room for God to collaborate instead of trying to cerebrally tackle something,” she says. “I think that’s really where all the power of creativity lies—your ability to leave room for the unknown.”
That openness, that sacred space for the unexpected, is present through every track. Baby Jane didn’t force this record into being—she let it reveal itself, trusting the divine to shape its form. “I didn’t try to decide what anything was going to be before it became what it is, and I let God decide.”
In doing so, A Grave Marked Strange becomes more than music—it becomes ritual. A document of trust in something bigger than fear, beyond control. And for those who listen, who live deeply and feel fully, it’s a reminder that embracing the strange, the intense, and the unknown is not just brave—it’s sacred.
LUNA: Thank you for talking to Luna. Our readers would love to get to know you and your music more. For any readers who aren’t familiar with you yet, what kind of atmosphere or sonic world do you aim to create for your listeners?
BABY JANE: Baby Jane is this blend of gothic fantasy and underground electronic genres fused together. I take a lot of inspiration from Eastern European rave culture as well as horror movies. I try to blend all of those influences thematically and sonically to create an immersive type of world. Baby Jane is if fantasy was a music genre.
LUNA: You just released your debut album A Grave Marked Strange and huge congratulations! I love how it’s so genre-defiant and a natural evolution to your underground and Euro-techno roots. What are some central themes or inspirations that you wanted to explore while bringing the album to fruition?
BABY JANE: A Grave Marked Strange is a concept album inspired by short horror stories that I read as a kid, so each song is like a mini myth. There's a song on there called “Myth.” It's very much a campy take on the horror genre, but still very emotionally raw, because Baby Jane is like the protagonist that I play in my fantasies. Most of the songs are inspired by a very stark exaggeration of things that happened to me, and I try to bridge the gap between pop storytelling and very lesser known mainstream genres in the US—genres like hard style, witch house, jump style, things that are more like the Eastern European scene.
It's very much where Baby Jane is at right now. For example, “Cults of Dionysus” is me experimenting with Russian Orthodox monk chants and warehouse techno, so it's blending all of those different influences. This is more of an electroclash, witch house, Crystal Castles-inspired song and “Search Party” is very much inspired by the Eastern European genre called wave that's been bubbling in the last couple years. I work with one guy. We like to experiment as much as we can and stay out of our comfort zone and stay away as much as we can from what would be the expected way to frame a pop song.
LUNA: You co-produced the entire record with War Tourism. What was your collaborative process like, and how did that partnership shape the world of the album?
BABY JANE: We work on everything together. We've made so many versions of each song, and that's the foundation of our partnership is that we're both willing to keep trying and trying until we think that the song has the best possible framework. He's one of my best friends. I will write a synth line for the most part, and a demo, and then we'll hash it out together. We spend so much time together that we basically have the same taste, but we both have been really into German hard bounce. I also get a lot of influences from curating my DJ sets, because I DJ a lot, and so that keeps me evolving my frame of influences. The foundation of our collaboration is that we're best friends, and we're very ruthless and trying and trying and trying.
LUNA: Is there a track on A Grave Marked Strange that you feel best captures your artistic evolution and emotional maturity? What about that song feels like a turning point for you?
BABY JANE: I think that just because of what it has done for my project, in terms of popularity and really given me an opportunity to promote this album with so many more people and share this album with so many more people, “Eternal Embrace” is the one that I would point people towards first, because so many people found me through this song and like I have a big male audience because of the hard style element. I don't think that anyone's ever done a dark, catchy, bilingual emo song over a hardstyle beat. I think that song was really me just embracing my family's heritage, as opposed to what everybody else was doing, and really just taking my individuality all the way and it paid off and people responded to it. It's the most experimental song on the album, but at the same time the most popular one.
LUNA: As the producer, writer, and engineer of the album, what was the most creatively fulfilling—or challenging—aspect of building this world from the ground up?
BABY JANE: I think that the fact that throughout the whole album, we didn't at one point decide exactly what it was going to be, and we really let it breathe and after finishing the album within one week, we made three of the songs on the album, “Psychotrance,” “Eternal Embrace” and “End of the Night.” Those are arguably the most popular songs off the album. I think it was a spiritual endeavor. I really prayed every day and allowed a lot of room for God to collaborate instead of trying to cerebrally tackle something. I think that's really where all the power of creativity lies, is your ability to leave room for the unknown. I put that into practice. I didn't try to decide what anything was going to be before it became what it is and I let God decide.
LUNA: Did you have any lessons or breakthroughs while bringing this album to life?
BABY JANE: I had so many. I poured everything into this album. I finished it probably like a month ago, and my tank was completely empty. It took me 10 years to make it, because everything that I've ever learned about music, about songwriting since I was a 13 year old, I poured into this album and to a point where it's just a body of work that I'm so excited exists and reflects Baby Jane as an artist and me as a person. It just feels like a benchmark of where my life is at as a young woman, as a woman who's navigating fear, intimacy and individuality. I feel like this album is the best part of me, and I've had so many people tell me, “you should be less goth,” or “you should be less macabre.” “You shouldn't talk about death.” “You should be less intense.” This album is me just embracing all of my intensity and hopefully sharing that with all the other intense people out there who feel everything heavily and take everything seriously and live deeply.
LUNA: Your fanbase, The Coven, seems to play a significant role in your artistic vision. How has building that community shaped how you think about performance, persona and connection?
BABY JANE: That's a really great question, because before I had them, when I was just trying to discover what it means to put out music, everything was for everybody, and everything was trying to appeal to somebody. I feel like I have this community that really understands me. For example, I'm in Berlin right now, and I've just played this iconic venue, but it’s a DJ set telling the story of Baby Jane. I incorporated A24 soundtracks of The Vvitch and Hereditary, and I put my own music in there.
Every time I go out and perform or put out a piece of content, I am just making it for them. I feel so supported by them, and I like knowing that there's people who have tattoos of my name and the symbol of the coven just gives me the confidence to really channel my authenticity, as opposed to ever trying to pander to what's popular or what's going on. It feels like I can be creative on my own terms. I'm not signed to a label either, so that's another thing. Everything I do is for my coven. Anytime I put anything out, they are the audience, and whoever wants to join that coven and come on board, that's awesome, but you know it is going to be completely authentic to my vision.
LUNA: What do you hope your coven can take away from the album?
BABY JANE: I always hope that what my coven can take away from any of my music is what I take away from my favorite artists, which is just bringing magic to their life and ignites their imagination and makes them want to be creative. That's why I named the album A Grave Marked Strange, it's a place outside of reality where we can meet and I just opened a portal to your spirit, your imagination, your communion with something unknown and something magical. That's the foundation of Baby Jane.
LUNA: What’s fueling your fire right now—musically or personally—that’s pushing you into this next chapter?
BABY JANE: I'm starting to travel and perform. This was something I wanted to do for a really long time. I'm completely floating because, like I said, I poured everything into this album. I'm just open and patiently waiting for the next inspiration. It's a nice place to be. I'm completely open and clear and ready to be filled with something completely new.
LUNA: How are you feeling in this current era of your career and what does the rest of the year look like for you that you would like to share with Luna?
BABY JANE: I feel like I'm just getting started, and at the same time, I've created something that I think people can discover and really delve into, and I feel really liberated by the fact that I'm independent, and I collaborate with my friends, and there's just a lot of love, personality, and authenticity that's poured into everything that I'm making. I just hope that it reaches people and they can feel my authenticity in a climate where maybe a lot of things are manufactured for algorithmic appeal, and a lot of things are manufactured by labels. I want to grow. I love performing. I want to perform for people. I have some shows coming up, some collabs coming up. I'm becoming and I'm ready to hold space for anyone who wants to join my coven, observe, interact, and engage, and share in the love and of the community.
LUNA: Is there anything else you would like to add?
BABY JANE: Check out my HÖR set because it's a cool representation of of some of the music on the album in a different way. I'll never play another set like that. I wanted to also give a shout out to one of my coven members, the lobotomizer, who created a custom set of a scold’s bridle for me to wear, which is a medieval torture device that I wrote a song about in my first extended EP. I just wanted to extend my appreciation for that.
Photography Credit: Max Durante
