If Izzy Hagerup’s new album, System, feels immediately uncompromising it’s because it was never really designed for public consumption. Released under her Prewn moniker, Hagerup describes the album as a “private journal made public.” The arresting nine songs on System chronicle a deeply personal journey through the darkness of depression, but one that’s always undercut by moments of humor as well as selfishness and self-reflection–a push-and-pull that feels wholly distinctive.
Following on Prewn’s 2023’s debut album Through The Window–a collection of songs that Pitchfork hailed as a “striking example of Hagerup’s ability to sit with ugliness”– System finds her crawling even deeper into the dense folds of the night. Hagerup alone wrote and recorded the album, mostly in long stretches of bedroom sessions that found her working through the night until she began to hear birdsong. System reckons with a lot of the thoughts that tend to needle in during those small hours: guilt, shame, and self-absorption, as well as the societal pressures that sit at the root of such things.
“This new album comes from a much more self-centered place, the stagnant aftermath of intensity and emotion,” Hagerup says. “I think it came from a period of time that was more numb, hollow, and confused. More disassociated from heartfelt pain, more entrenched in a frustrating and aimless discomfort.”
