Rabbitology has been up to a lot since starting out her music journey through the creation of college-dorm-bedroom demos.
The year has been off to a great start for the alternative folk artist and producer. She recently dropped her debut EP, Living Ghost. Only a couple months later, she collaborated with Sparkbird for an enchanting rendition of “Preybirds.”
Here are our thoughts about the EP:
The entirely self-produced, “midwestern gothic” folktronica EP is a 6-track collection. It sheds light on themes surrounding the topic of stagnancy. The EP explores Rabbitology’s perspective of the feminine experience, mental health and feeling like a ghost in one’s own life.
Track 1 “Intro (Living Ghost)” poignantly and emotionally opens the door to the Living Ghost EP. It conveys the feeling of stagnancy and maybe a little hopelessness. This is especially present in the passages detailing a sense of confusion and numbness. However, the song ends with a fighting spirit, still alive despite it all. The final line beautifully captures the very essence of the entire EP, Living Ghost.
How am I still breathing if I’ve already died?
~ Intro (Living Ghost)
True to the title Living Ghost, track number 2 “Millie, Warm the Kettle” wraps the topic of panic disorder and mental health in the story of a haunting. However, the protagonist of the story is the ghost that’s haunting Millie. It is an anthem of appreciation for those strong enough to keep going, despite feeling like everything is falling apart.
“New Girl, Old Ghosts” takes a look at stagnancy from a different angle. It tells the tale of a man who continues to deceive and use his partners. Effectively, he makes multiple people go through the same story over and over again. We witness it through the eyes of a victim of his’ and is now one of his old ghosts. However, there is hope that the new girl will break the cycle, ensuring there won’t be any more old ghosts.
“Preybirds (The Watched Version)” featuring Sparkbird, is another tragic story of an unfortunate soul, stuck running in circles. It illustrates the hopeless journey of someone continuing to make poor decisions that keep on hurting them. Sadly, it appears as though helping this loved one break free is in vain. It soon becomes clear that they keep making the same mistake over and over again.
Alongside the song, Rabbitology and Sparkbird released a visualizer, featuring 900 fan drawings of hares and birds.
Watch the official visualizer to “Preybirds (The Watched Version)” below
“Butcheress” explores the theme of sexuality and identity. It portrays the mental strain that comes from trying to find yourself and to feel comfortable in the own skin. The song uses the butcheress as a metaphor for self-destructive behavior and the struggle with the own mind.
“I made myself my butcheress”
~ Butcheress
In the face of judgement and wishing to live her own desires and find peace, the protagonist tears herself apart.
The finale of the EP “Wildfire (Gone, Gone, Gone) / Death Song” breaks the stagnancy the EP revolves around. It claims the role of a ‘goodbye’ song if you so will. The “Wildfire” in the song isn’t just present through the lyrics. Crackling fire in the background adds to the song’s narrative and atmosphere. As the intensity rises, it transitions into the “Death Song.” The track carries a hopeful outlook, using death, rebirth and reclamation as a driving force of empowerment. It urges us to overcome what holds us back and make ourselves heard.
We had the amazing opportunity to converse with Rabbitology via email and talk about her debut EP Living Ghost, as well as her collaboration with Sparkbird. Please find our exchange below.
What is the background story to your artist name Rabbitology? How does it tie in with your art?
I’ve always thought in metaphor. How to process my experiences and emotions through symbols and plotlines that made sense to me, since the real world oftentimes can be senseless. I’ve also always identified with the symbol of the rabbit and the hare. To be twitchy, witchy, and harebrained, a strange but gentle creature.
My art has almost always had a hare or rabbit in it for this reason. In high school, I was writing and producing a folk horror play with a hare as its central symbol — during this, I wondered, what would my next big project be? I’ve always had to have a big storytelling project to work on, and I spent my high school years playwriting. I wanted to transfer the skills I learned into another passion I had which was music production.
At the time, I was going to call my project “Rabbit Odyssey” (I literally wrote down this name while in the light booth of my high school theater!) and it was going to have the same folk horror vibes as the play. “Rabbit Odyssey” — the idea that it was my life but told through a metaphorical, folk horror lens. But as I was driving home that night, I was workshopping it— “odyssey” didn’t sound too spooky, it sounded more whimsical. I kept repeating it to myself and I found out that if you said it fast enough, it sounded like “Rabbitology.” That felt better. A study of my emotions and experiences.
Tell us about the title of your debut EP “Living Ghost.” How did it develop and how is it reflected in the EP?
In my teen and young adult years, I’ve struggled with feelings of being stuck, stagnant, and numb. This comes in many different forms — whether it be from my mental health history, my gender expression, or simply living through too many midwest winters. But the main title comes from the inspiration that I struggled a lot as a child with a panic disorder and the debilitating psychosomatic pains it caused.
Every day, I thought it was my last, that my body would finally die. Of course, I slowly learned how to deal with it. But when you have such an intense childhood like that, with such intense feelings and emotions, everything feels a bit less in comparison. That’s okay, in fact, I’m so glad to not be feeling absolutely awful every day. Still, I feel like a Living Ghost, because maybe a long time ago, I “died,” but I never really died, because I’m still here, despite my body and mental illness telling me I was dying.
Beyond this, it represents not feeling seen or listened to due to my gender, feeling like a wallflower and not being able to do much about it. And also, feeling like a ghost in my midwestern town. Sometimes every day feels the same, the same grey skies. I, personally, love it, as it drove me mad enough to want to be a writer. I kid. Living Ghost is about reveling in these macabre, even uncomfortable feelings.
You have created the whole EP on your own from your dorm room at university. What did the creative process behind that look like?
Messy. Rented microphones, or dented second-hand ones. A lot of takes with the boy’s communal bathroom door swinging in the background.
A lot of cut takes of me getting too excited with a take and hitting my head on the lofted bed. It’s a lot of improvisation, like instead of using real instruments, filling up a metal water bottle half way and using that as percussion. It’s also a lot of imperfection, accepting that you’re not going to sound professional because you’re in a university dorm room. In that sense, it’s freeing.
You’re in a little box where the sky is also the limit. You don’t have to be perfect, because you can’t be. You can only be you and whatever pieces of you exist within this space.
With your mastery of the Folk genre, you created this intriguing mixture of medieval flair, with modern soundscapes. How did you find your fondness for this genre?
I love the macabre and the gently haunting, and I’ve always grown up on that. In fact, my lullaby as a baby was often my dad singing, “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.” Folk is mostly the vessel for this vibe, so I’ve always found myself working in this genre.
How did your collaboration with Sparkbird come to be?
Sparkbird and I have always been algorithmically intertwined — in fact, I came across their music while adding songs to one of my artist’s playlists only a couple weeks after CANDLEBURN’s release.
There’s something about being a writer that you can just tell when someone else is a writer. Writer sense. And I felt that since the get-go, their lyrics are unmatched. Because of this cosmic intertwining, I’ve always wanted to work with them on something, and it feels like the universe wanted that, too.
The production of “Preybirds” was the longest one I’ve experienced — it’s my “oldest” song technically out because I began writing it the summer before college in 2022. I just could never settle on a perspective, the Watcher, or the Watched? I settled on the Watcher’s perspective in early 2024, but even when the song was finished and released, it felt like the story itself wasn’t. I knew this was the perfect time to bring in a second writer for the other’s perspective.
The visualizer for “Preybirds” for your collaboration with Sparkbird is an incredibly special creation featuring 900 pieces of fan art. How did this collaboration, not only with Sparkbird, but also with all the fans come to be and what message do you want to convey through it?
I love being hands on in everything related to my project. We were originally going to ask someone to animate a video for this song, but I couldn’t settle on just one animator, since both Rabbitology and Sparkbird listeners are so incredibly talented. The idea hit me while walking to class, to try and feature as many listener’s work as possible in one video. I have a rule in my artistry that when I have an idea, it’s my job to bear the workload. I thought we were going to maybe get 100-200 submissions, so when 900 came in at the end of the week, it was definitely a very beautiful shock!
It took about a full week to animate everyone’s work, and I was animating right up to the deadline. I’m told I forgot how to blink near the end. But it was so worth it. I just had include everyone’s work, because everyone has such different and creative ways of going about their hares or birds. I hope that this video acts as a representation of how much our listeners mean to us, even at this small scale.
The work was long but it was never difficult, even running on 3 hours of sleep I woke up jazzed to animate the next stunning work of art. Everyone is just so brilliant and creative, and their creativity is the support that keeps us going. Both Sparkbird and Rabbitology fans listen to our music for inspiration of their own works and stories, and that’s the greatest honor I could imagine.
The hares and the birds don’t just fit the song “Preybirds” well because of your artist names Rabbitology and Sparkbird, but they carry different kinds of meaning in folk- and fairytales. Would you say this is reflected in the song? And if so, how?
My absolute favorite folk song, maybe even favorite song in general, is “Hares on the Mountain” which features hares, birds, and then fish. It’s a very haunting song tantalizing an alternate reality where the animals maybe house a human soul. It’s funny that our two staple critters fit this song! They’re very witchy creatures, the bird and the hare, they are always watching us from the bushes or the trees. Maybe they are the conduits or the eyes for something more mystical than we know.
“Preybirds” seems to be dealing with the topics of emotional health and trying to help someone who has made poor decisions regarding that. Is the story purely anecdotal, or is it based on real life events?
All of my music is based on real life events, just metamorphosed through a grounded but fantastical lens. It’s how I process my difficult or intense emotions. So unfortunately, the frustration depicted in these lyrics here is a very real, experienced frustration.
It’s hard to watch someone you love make terrible choices, ones that ultimately harm them. It’s even harder when they don’t listen, or even take their anger out on you for trying to protect them. You just want to scream and beg them to listen, but of course, it’s their life, not yours. I hope “Preybirds” helps those who are going through something similar have a similar emotional catharsis to the one I had while writing it.
This is only the beginning of Rabbitology’s incredible journey. We are eager to follow along as she keeps enchanting us with her powerful art.
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