Amoeba Music

Our apologies but due to unforeseen circumstances, today’s Ekkstacy in-store is canceled. Tomorrow’s show at the Independent is very much still on!

Canadian singer-songwriter Ekkstacy performs live and signs his fourth studio-album, Forever (out 7/11), at Amoeba SF on Tuesday, July 29th at 5pm! Purchase Forever at Amoeba SF to get it signed after the set. This is a free, all-ages event.

Also catch Ekkstacy on July 30th at the Independent!

Following the critical success of his 2024 self-titled studio album, EKKSTACY, the 23-year-old made the unusual decision to move back home. He left Los Angeles, his home base for the past couple of years. He tried living in New York City (“It was awful, miserable”) before returning to the quiet solitude of Vancouver, where he grew up, and where his parents still live.

The calm of British Columbia was a necessary respite. While touring Europe in 2024, Stacy fell into a cycle of hard partying. “A lot of drugs and a lot of drinking—psychosis” he said. Stacy had sworn to never do drugs after a bad trip in high school landed him in the hospital, but Europe reoriented something in his brain: “I was like, everything's safe here.” That dark cycle continued when he returned to the States, and that’s when knew it was time for a change. “I was partying really, really, really hard,” said Stacy. “And then I met this girl. And then I was kind of like, I should probably stop.”

He wrote his forthcoming studio album, Forever, sober-ish and in love. While earlier works were inspired by artists like The Drums, Lil Peep, Current Joys, and the Smiths — infusing Ekkstacy's sound with modern yet doomy post-punk malaise — his fourth album possesses a fresh sense of clarity and focus: a shedding of snakeskin. Renewal. “I wrote most of these songs sober as fuck in my house,” said Stacy. “I don't want to write about my ex-girlfriends anymore. I don't want to talk about the Bellas.”

Instead, Forever ventures into gnarlier, less detached territory. The guitars are crunchier, the singing more honest. “I just stopped liking the indie stuff that I was listening to and I just got more into emo,” he said, citing bands like Japandroids and Remo Drive.

Before, Stacy would write and produce all the instrumentation himself, only stacking on lyrics at the very end. On Forever, he overhauled his whole approach to making music by singing… with a guitar… which, to him, felt like a creative revelation. The resulting tunes are cohesive and unflinching — the sound of an artist entering his prime. Unlike his last album, there are no features, no guest appearances, no gimmicks. It’s just Ekkstacy fully in possession of himself, harvesting all of the intangibles that made him such an exciting talent to begin with. Here he is on Forever: unbothered, happy, focused.