ivri Turns Up The Noise

Alternative artist ivri debuted her album, the theory of you, last year in 2025, which features the breakout hit, “tower of memories,” a song immediately recognizable from its fuzzy electronic intro that was popularized on social media. And now comes her new EP, evidence of you, which features masterfully crafted, noisy, and distorted instrumentals that parallel the deep and relatable emotional lyrics, diving into ivri’s personal exploration while merging elements of sci-fi with character exploration, disassociation, and transformation. With a new level of craft for ivri, evidence of you speaks to her musical evolution and her ability to continue exploring not only genres, but herself through songwriting. 

If you could just give a brief background into who you are as an artist for people who don't know? 

So, before I was a musician, I was studying to go into the Air Force. I was an ROTC all throughout high school, but I wanted to be in the military for science. Maybe something with mineral physics, something like that. But I was posting videos of me singing online, and I realized that people were sampling those vocals and putting them online. I didn't know about it. And they were getting millions of views and streams. Rappers were rapping over it and sampling my voice. Then I got a manager and that was Matt because he was like, "Hey, you're missing out on a lot of money here." I was like, "Oh, am I? That's great because I'm homeless right now. So that's amazing." He helped me out. Then I realized, “Okay, I'm living off of music without even having a song out.” So I decided to start my artist project, ivri, which is also my name. And now I'm just making music. 

We're going to talk about your EP, evidence of you, that was released on July 31st. Could you first talk about the inspiration and process behind creating it. How did it originally spark? 

My last project before that was called the theory of you. It was an album. And the inspiration behind the theory of you was that before I was making really soft music, and the music on that album got heavier because I was growing up and I was experiencing heavier emotions, and I didn't really know how to put them into words. And so I tried my best there. But evidence of you is like these things have now taken their own form in a way, like their own physical form. There's this character in my world, his name is Mr. Brain Gobbler. And he is just a manifestation of negative stuff. But yeah, evidence of you, the themes are like imposter syndrome, disassociation, derealization. It's who am I? The whole project is just who the fuck am I?

Also something that I noticed is for the last album, I believe all the songs were in lowercase, and this one is all capital letters.

There's a lot of lore-dissecting happening in my discord and with my fans and it's cool.

So five songs. And you have a really huge discography of music and it's changed a lot. What do you think this new set of releases really adds to your catalog of music?

I think it just adds a really refreshing sound. I'm always trying something new. The last project was more rock, but it still had some interesting influences here and there. This one I'm going all out. “NOISE” is one of my favorites on the EP. It's so electronic and heavy, crazy kicks happening and everything's just kind of crazy. And then we have a song, “THE GOLDEN RECORD” that is so different from maybe “SABOTAGE.” I don't know, I just love trying things. Compared to my older music, this is just like a whole new wave of me putting everything I want to put out into songs. 

You had mentioned this, but I noticed a lot of the themes you were talking about. Character exploration was something that I had noted. A little bit of sci-fi, especially in “SPLIT (SHE IS NOT ME)” and “UNRECOGNIZABLE.” Where does a lot of your songwriting inspiration come from?

I'm a huge fan of cartoons, anime, sci-fi movies, books, anything that has to do with anything spacey, anything supernatural, anything psychological. Anything for Cartoon Network. I wanted so badly to work for Cartoon Network, but now it's not even a thing. But there are still chances to work on things similar or people that are in that world. I love video games. I'm a huge Zelda fan. I got a Nintendo Flip. A really old one. And I don't know. Playing these older games, the music and the storyline is super inspiring.

I can imagine it's inspiring also to create your own world and seeing how this music inspires the characters. 

It definitely is. It's really fun. I think I've always been a storyteller. I always say I'm a better poet than I am a singer because everything that I put out comes from poetry. 

And is that where a lot of your lyrics come from?

I write poetry, and then I go into a session and I'm like, "Okay, what am I feeling?" And I just go through what I've written. And if I'm feeling something similar, I will go back to it and base it off of a concept or something. But sometimes I'll go into a session and be like, "I'm just going to start from scratch." I haven't gotten writer's block in so long. It's been years. I think there's always new things happening. And my life has been kind of crazy lately, so there's always new experiences to write about. When it comes to movies, I love “Interstellar.” An old one, “Killer Klowns from Outer Space.” It's such a weird movie. Anything psychological, horror or sci-fi, I love. You had mentioned “UNRECOGNIZABLE.” In that one I like the story that I'm telling there because it's like I blow out the candles and I wish to be unrecognizable. I feel like some people would think that I was talking about like, "Oh, it's my birthday. I'm blowing out the candles and making a wish." But really it's a ceremony to change yourself and magic.

And doesn’t that relate to the cover of the EP?

It does. I literally go back and dig through myself to find older pieces of me. I'm putting my two bodies of mine, older and newer, and taking stuff from myself, my own dead body. It's very dark and weird. It's like real feelings that I feel.

Let's talk a little bit about “NOISE.” I’ve been listening with headphones because you can really hear everything. 

I don't know why but in the studio I was like “maximalist, maximalist. I want crazy sounds. I want double kicks.”

Yes. What really hit me was listening to the drums. It was so insane.There's this really intense parallel drum and synth beat. 

We called it the “boss battle” in the bridge. We actually programmed the drums. They're programmed, but my drummer does it live. He does it all live. And it's crazy watching it. I'm like, "Oh my God, sorry. My bad.”

Why did you want to release that one first out of all of the singles?

Well, mostly because it sounded really cool. But also I think it was a great subtle intro to the themes and the concept of the EP. I was just saying, "Hey, this is something I feel." I feel like as humans we are always being constantly distracted. And in this, I'm talking about how someone isn't who they are anymore because of all these distractions. And I just think music is a way to help me cope, and for a lot of people to cope. I think that was a great way to just to be like, “a lot is about to happen.” I was afraid it wasn’t going to be digestible, but it was. 

You've explored a lot of different sonic directions throughout your career. Is there a specific genre you want to experiment with next? 

I've been experimenting with electronic dance music recently, but it's not like regular dance music. I guess when my next album comes out people will understand what I mean by not regular dance music. But I've been experimenting with things like that. I feel like the song “SABOTAGE” on this project was more hyper pop, mixed with math rock. My problem is I hear something, and I'm like, "Oh, I want to try that." And so I've just been kind of doing everything. I think I'm going to continue to keep exploring. 

I think it's so cool since you've been making music for so long, exploring and rebranding and it's deeper into who you are. What is one goal you want to accomplish in the next year?

The crazy thing is I've had goals and I've done so much this year. I've hit a lot of goals already. I wanted to leave the country and tour. We've toured Europe. We're going to Australia. I wanted to play festivals. Now we're playing a bunch of festivals. We've already played a few. I wanted to play the main stage at a festival. Now I'm playing a main stage at Louder Than Life with Pierce The Veil and Sleeping With Sirens and all these really cool people. And I don't know. Things are just constantly happening to me and I'm like, “This is cool.” But I think I would love to get more in touch with myself. This project, evidence of you, is exactly what it is. I'm having identity struggles, and I think that over time as I explore myself more, I'll just turn into myself more. 

Find ivri on Spotify, Instagram, and her website. Listen to her new EP, evidence of you.

Photos by Joana Meurkens.