Eilis Frawley has today released her new single titled ‘Calm Down’, from her upcoming sophomore album dropping soon via Sinnbus Records. Eilis has apparently looked at the modern world, watched everyone frantically scrolling themselves into oblivion, and decided that the appropriate musical response is to tell us all to calm down. Fair enough. The Australian born, Berlin based artist’s latest single, ‘Calm Down’, does not exactly whisper its advice, but it delivers the message with such peculiar elegance that you might actually listen. Built around Frawley’s percussion driven approach and sharply delivered spoken word, the track inhabits that wonderful space where experimental music stops trying to impress you and starts getting under your skin.
The brilliance of ‘Calm Down’ is in the tension. Frawley creates something that feels controlled and composed while simultaneously suggesting that the entire mental furniture of modern existence is about to collapse. The percussion has a hypnotic, kraut inspired pulse, but nothing about it feels predictable. Rhythms appear to shift and flirt with disorder without ever completely losing their grip. It is an impressively strange balancing act, particularly in an era when plenty of artists seem to believe that adding another synth automatically qualifies as experimentation.
Lyrically, Frawley goes straight for the digital jugular. ‘Calm Down’ questions the endless stream of information, opinions, notifications, algorithms and carefully curated realities that now compete for every spare second of human attention. Rather than turning the subject into a tedious lecture, Frawley gives the ideas room to breathe inside the music. Her spoken delivery is direct, cool and deliberately uncompromising, creating the feeling that someone has finally walked into the room and asked the question everyone else has been too distracted to consider. Are we actually choosing what we believe, or are we simply being served increasingly personalized versions of reality?
What makes the single especially effective is its refusal to make anxiety sound fashionable. Frawley does not need a giant crescendo or an unnecessary wall of noise to communicate unease. Instead, she allows the rhythmic architecture to remain slightly off center, creating a strange sense of beauty that never quite settles comfortably. It is intelligent music without the smugness, political music without the sermon, and experimental music that still remembers songs are supposed to make you feel something. Imagine that, a concept apparently worth celebrating in 2026.
‘Calm Down’ ultimately feels like an invitation to stop participating in the frantic competition for attention, even if only for a few minutes. Frawley turns stillness into something radical and makes restraint feel far more confrontational than another predictable sonic explosion. With its striking percussion, incisive spoken word and beautifully unsettled atmosphere, the single confirms that Eilis Frawley is operating in a space entirely her own. ‘Calm Down’ does not simply ask you to slow down. It makes you question why you were running in the first place.
Featured image by Marcelle Bradbeer.
About ‘Calm Down’
Australian-born, Berlin-based drummer, percussionist, and songwriter Eilis Frawley releases ‘Calm Down’, out September 4th via cult Berlin label Sinnbus Records. The sophomore single from her forthcoming album takes a starkly different approach from its predecessor “Guilt”—replacing anger with elegance, beat-driven intensity with an intricately flirring yet slightly odd percussive architecture.
‘Calm Down’ confronts the overwhelming flow of information in contemporary life and the illusion of truth in an algorithmic world. Wrapped in Frawley’s signature approach—direct, unforgiving spoken word layered over kraut-like rhythms—the single asks urgent questions about who controls what we see and whether we’re choosing our beliefs or simply absorbing what we’ve been fed.
“They say truth is information, but isn’t it tailored by design?” Frawley asks over the track’s elegant yet unsettling percussion. The production creates cognitive dissonance—beauty and unease existing simultaneously—mirroring the tension between the comfortable narratives we’re fed and the reality beneath them.
Frawley explains the song’s central thesis: “We’re surrounded by news, strong opinions, notifications, and algorithms, all tailored to our individual interests and needs. But is the truth being tailored too? Is information subjective? Who gets our attention? Who’s shaping what we see? Are we choosing what we believe, or just being very fed what to believe? When everything is demanding our attention, maybe the best thing we can do is nothing at all. In a world where everything competes for our attention, sometimes the most radical thing you can do is simply calm down.”
Eilis Frawley combines direct and unforgiving spoken word amid kraut-like rhythms to explore social structures, feminism, and mental health. Her work speaks truth to creative insecurities, personal tragedies, and the impacts of living as an outsider—first in Seoul, South Korea, then in Berlin. Rather than softening her message for palatability, Frawley’s approach is confrontational, her rhythms hypnotic yet unsettling, her words precise and unavoidable.
About Eilis Frawley
Classically trained as a percussionist from the Elder Conservatorium of Music in Adelaide, Australia, Frawley spent years in Seoul before relocating to Berlin in 2016. She has since established herself as a multidisciplinary artist: a freelance drummer working with Laura Lee and The Jettes, Kara Delik, Anika (Live band), and Adna (Live band); a solo recording artist; and a community organizer.
In 2016, Frawley founded Bang On, a Berlin-based platform for emerging artists with a strong emphasis on LGBTQI+ support and community. The platform has become a vital space for underrepresented voices in Berlin’s music scene.
Frawley’s debut album ‘Fall Forward’ (March 2025, Sinnbus Records) established her as an artist unafraid to merge technical precision with emotional rawness. Critical coverage has appeared in Louder Than War, God Is In The TV Zine, The Berliner, and Lola Magazine—publications recognizing her distinctive voice within contemporary electronic and experimental music.
‘Calm Down’ continues and expands on the thematic concerns established across her debut: how we process information, construct identity, survive in systems designed to overwhelm us, and what resistance looks like in an age of algorithmic control.
LINKS:
https://eilisfrawleydrums.bandcamp.com
https://www.instagram.com/eilisfrawleydrums/
https://linktr.ee/eilisfrawleydrums