Fae Is Ready to Break the Surface Tension

Imagine an Olympic swimmer coming up for air mid-race. You’ve seen the image — the swimmer’s head is enveloped in a water bubble that is just about to pop.

And when it does, the reward is one we all crave: air, or the ability to breathe again.

That image served as inspiration for Fae’s single cover for “Surface Tension,” which is out Feb. 12.

The cover art, photographed by Paige Margulies, represents “going from drowning to being above water,” Fae says.

The song follows Fae’s attempt to take her life in 2024 after she was in an emotionally abusive relationship. For Fae, music is a way to transmute pain.

“This suffering wasn't just for the sake of suffering,” Fae says. “Maybe somebody else will connect with this and maybe it will help them.”

If history repeats itself, the song will help someone else. It’s happened to Fae before.

“I have gotten messages from people before that have told me that I have saved their life,” Fae says. “I got a message like that when I was planning on taking my own life in 2024.”

Fae says that the fan’s message is a “large part of what made me change my mind.”

“We don't realize the impact that we have on other people,” she adds.

Now, Fae prepares to release her fourth EP, the deluge.

“I see myself as a very lyric-first artist,” Fae says. This approach offers more freedom to experiment with sound.

“A lot of my fans connect so much with the words that the way that I dress them up, I think I have a little bit more freedom with,” she says.

Most of her songs start with a poem. Fae says she’ll write in a stream of consciousness — a writing technique where you write down whatever comes to mind without second thoughts.

“Everything for me I break down into lyrical themes,” Fae says.

As a queer, half-Japanese artist, Fae has no option but to bring herself fully into her work.

“My identity impacts my artistry because my lens is the only lens that I have,” Fae says.

Fae says she grew up aware that Asian people, specifically Asian women, had a stereotype placed upon them that showed them as docile, timid and submissive.

Fae had other plans.

“I very intentionally lean into the aggression and being on the offensive because I didn't really have anything that looked like me growing up, and I want to be that so badly,” Fae says.

“I'm not necessarily writing about being Asian in my songs; it's more like me being the messenger, and doing this in such an aggressive way, I really, really hope is resonating with a younger version of me.”

Autism is another defining part of Fae’s identity, she says. “I didn't know that I was autistic until a couple of years ago, so some songs I've now looked through that lens, and I'm like, ‘This makes so much sense.’”

Fae’s discography feels like one long story that comes together with the release of more music. She attributes her own meaning to words across her catalog to make a vocabulary within her songs. A word in one song may contain hidden meaning in the next.

“Surface Tension” includes an example of this. Fae says the lyric that best encapsulates the song is the last line of the first verse: “Left to my own devices, oh, I make myself choke.”

Fae has a single called “CHOKE” that was released last year. That song details how Fae can snap when pushed to the edge, she says — and it changes the interpretation of the word in “Surface Tension.”

To decode the language, look for the all-caps, one-word song titles in her discography.

Then, look for the deluge, out in mid-March.