Q&A: EDEN on the Art of Starting Over and His Return with ‘Dark’
INTERVIEW
INTERVIEW
☆ BY SHEVON GREENE ☆
AHEAD OF HIS UPCOMING US AND EU/UK TOUR, EDEN UNVEILS DARK — a genre-blurring project that feels like both a reset and a rebirth. It’s his sixth studio album and it arrives today, marking an important evolution in his artistry. Following his 2022 project ICYMI, the latest album explores the boundaries of pop, ambient, and experimental electronics and captures the overlapping energies of the early 2020s.
In what EDEN calls a “double exposure” of overlapping lives, emotions, and moments, the record began in 2022 with two songs, “Still” and “Quantuuuum,” that now open and close the tracklist. From there, the project took shape through a process of creating and abandoning ideas until its full body emerged.
Born from a creative reset and industry upheaval, Dark is what EDEN describes as “starting over.” Singles “Gggiiiiirrrrlllll” and “Ghost in the Shell” have already given us glimpses into his emotional journey, and EDEN is set to bring that vision to life on his US and EU/UK tour beginning this fall.
We chatted with EDEN about the making of Dark, the “double exposure” that drives it, and translating its extremes into a live show. Read on for the full conversation.
LUNA: It’s exciting to see you releasing new music after a bit of a break. Let’s start with your upcoming album Dark. It began with songs like “Still” and “Quantuuuum” back in 2022. What about those tracks made them the foundation for the album?
EDEN: My albums almost always start with the title. I’d had Dark in my head for about a year by then—somewhere between my gut and my subconscious there was already a sense of how it should feel, the territory it wanted to touch on, and maybe even the journey it would take. After ICYMI came out in 2022, I started creating again, and “Still” and “Quantuuuum” were two ideas that came early.
“Still” began as a more ambient piece than the version that ended up on the album, but I knew I wanted it to loop in this chopped, hypnotic way while still feeling like a pop song in a strange way. “Quantuuuum” was my take on something shoegaze-adjacent. They felt like the beginning and the end of a project.
At one point, “Quantuuuum” didn’t seem to fit, so I left it out. The album ended on “Pocket” instead. But last year, when everything was unraveling with my management and label, I started rethinking the record. Bringing “Quantuuuum” back was an obvious choice—it had everything I wanted in an album closer. It’s like credits music, touching on all the themes at once. Looking back, they really were the genesis of the whole record, even if I didn’t realize it then. It’s a bit like excavating a skeleton and finding a single bone first—you don’t know what the rest will look like, but you know it’s part of something bigger.
LUNA: Love that “Quantuuuum” came back into the picture. You’ve said you made a lot of music for this project and abandoned just as much. How do you decide what makes the cut?
EDEN: Most ideas are cut before they’re even finished—you can feel it in the process. Once you have a track that feels special, it becomes the standard. Anything that doesn’t measure up or is too similar just falls away.
But I’ve also been trying to finish more ideas, even if they don’t fit the current project. If something keeps bouncing around your head and you never act on it, it takes up space and blocks new ideas. Sometimes it’s better to just get it out of your head and body, even if you know it’s not destined for the album.
LUNA: That makes sense. Even if it’s not right for now, it’s there for later. You’ve described Dark as feeling like starting again. How did that reset influence the sound?
EDEN: In a funny way, the reset feeling came before the upheaval with my team. The energy of making this music reminded me of my very first EP—not in sound, but in the spirit behind it. When the management and label situations fell apart, it just reinforced that sense of a fresh start.
LUNA: The “double exposure” metaphor—overlapping lives, emotions, and moments—feels central to Dark. How did that shape your songwriting and production?
EDEN: I think about that idea all the time, and it’s reflected in the music I consume. I listen to a lot of experimental stuff, but also pop, hip-hop, Latin music—things that might seem unrelated but can all exist together and be loved at the same time. That mix naturally comes through in my own work.
In songwriting, I like to trace a single emotional thread through different moments, so the through line is the feeling, even if the scenes are separate. It’s partly stream of consciousness, partly deliberate design. Life doesn’t give you clean bookends—there’s overlap and ambiguity—and the songs mirror that.
LUNA: Definitely. I feel like that’s what music is—it’s just life experience, whether it’s your own or someone else’s story. “Ghost in the Shell” and “Gggiiiiirrrrlllll” are really different in mood. How did you approach sequencing the album so it could hold that range while still feeling cohesive?
EDEN: Sequencing is one of my favorite parts of making an album. It’s fascinating how rearranging just a few songs can totally change the experience. “Still” was always going to be the opener.
I love playing with truncation and abrupt cuts—sometimes the end of one song is smashed right into the start of the next. “Zzz” cuts off “Still”’s outro with a vocal sample, which feels playful to me. Some tracks, like “Pocket” and “Quantuuuum,” flow right into each other, while others are separated by hard cuts to keep the listener on their toes.
I’ve also explored contrast inside the songs themselves. “Ghost in the Shell” starts in this ambient, percussive space and then collapses into a raw guitar singalong. Moving from “True,” which I think of as a manifesto on love, straight into “5ever” creates a conversation between them. Sequencing is about finding that dynamic flow so the album feels like a journey—sometimes seamless, sometimes jarring in a way that works.
LUNA: Across the 13 tracks, you blend pop, ambient, and experimental electronics. What production or arrangement moments stand out most for you?
EDEN: “Ghost in the Shell” was special because it began with a production experiment I wanted to try, and it turned into a song I really needed to write. “True” didn’t have strings at first, but I always felt it needed something extra—recording those parts was really satisfying.
Then there’s “Light Sleeper,” which has the same chord progression all the way through. That sounds simple, but the way the melody shifts in relation to the chords changes the feeling. The second chorus starts halfway through the progression instead of at the top like the first, and it completely alters the emotional pull. When I realized I could have both versions in one song without breaking the flow, it was a magic moment.
LUNA: Earlier this year, your SoundCloud archive of over 900 tracks leaked, forcing you to delete years of work. How did that change your relationship with your older material?
EDEN: I hadn’t listened to most of it in years; some of it goes back to 2012. I couldn’t even listen to Vertigo for a long time because it came from such a difficult place. The leak felt invasive, like someone stealing your diary and posting it online.
But over time, I found peace with it. There were rough demos, terrible lyrics, and even recordings with no lyrics at all—embarrassing stuff—but seeing it all again gave me a new appreciation for my past work, even the parts I no longer relate to. Weirdly, it freed me up.
LUNA: I can imagine. And you’ve regained rights to some of your past singles, right? How does that kind of ownership impact how you approach releases now?
EDEN: Vertigo is the only project I’ll never own; it’s tied to an old-school deal I wouldn’t sign today. I promised myself not to give up ownership like that again. When the label dropped me during Dark’s first rollout, it felt like a huge betrayal. Getting the rights back was liberating, and it meant the album could actually see the light of day.
LUNA: How are you envisioning translating Dark’s layered, contrasting sound into a live show?
EDEN: We’re figuring that out now. I’ve had ideas for the show since my last tour, but making them work logistically is tricky. The pop-up shows we did last summer felt like a test run; they were chaotic in the best way. The album is all about extremes: joy and heartbreak, anger and love, bitterness and elation. The live show should be a celebration of all those feelings colliding.
LUNA: Which song are you most excited to play live for the first time?
EDEN: “Quantuuuum.” I’ve never had a track quite like it, and I think it’ll feel like lift-off when we play it.
