Upon first meeting Jess Chase, it is immediately apparent that she’s undeniably confident, earnest, and passionate. A self-made artist, Chase has dedicated her life thus far to something that’s always been consistent: music.

“I’ve been doing music my whole life,” she began. A transplant to New York City from Washington state, Chase attended high school at Tacoma School of the Arts, where she learned how to record with Pro Tools music software and songwriting techniques. “So I’ve been doing it (music) since I was in my early teens.”

A culmination of this passion came in the form of her debut EP Carnage, released Oct. 10, 2024. A five-song record, Carnage is a confessional odyssey that follows the narrator through self-discovery and answering the question, “Who am I?” From experimental sounds with instruments such as the melancholic Mellotron and Vibraslap percussion, to a custom speech synthesis plugin Chase made with code and Max MSP, there is inspiration found in the eclectic that manifests itself through her music.

“I like the synth-singer-songwriter style of music,” Chase explained, “so I like blending those two genres. I’m a big fan of Grizzly Bear, and I’m also a big fan of Mitski. So it’s, what if those two textures of music were to make a nexus between the two? What would that sound like? I think that’s more my sound.”

Choosing instruments is a journey of introspection in and of itself. “If I think a twinkle needs to happen, [I’ll think,] what kind of instrument makes that sound?” Chase elaborated. “If I want something to cut through and do a solo, then that’s more where a synth lead will come in. It’s more about what the thing is I’m trying to accomplish.”

A perfect example of this innovation is in the bridge of track three of Carnage, “Unemployment.” “I want it to feel like a secret,” Chase said, “and that secret is told, like, while you’re riding horseback through the Great Plains or something. So you’re hearing horse hooves. You’re hearing spurs on cowboy boots. You’re hearing the wind whistling and tumbleweeds blowing through the desert. That’s to create that sonic feel so that when you’re listening to the music, you put yourself in that place.”

The entirety of Carnage is about putting the listener in that first-person point of view, so to speak. From the opening track “Bad” to the antithetical closer of “Pure,” Carnage forces the listener to engage in the relatable while contemplating their own maturation. It’s as much a penance as it is a self-indulgence.

“So, you start off, am I bad?” Chase started, recounting the EP’s tracklist. “Then you go to, ‘I’m ‘On My Way!’ to becoming who I’m gonna become.’ You have a stint in unemployment. You hit another low, and you are going through the carnage of all your decision-making and the struggles that you’re having in this life, and then you get to ‘Pure.’ That’s the way I think about it.”

The titular track “Carnage,” perhaps, is the epitome of what Chase hopes listeners take away from the record. “The reason why ‘Carnage’ is the one that it’s (the EP) named after is that all of that has its own carnage to it, right? Like, am I bad? What are the stories people are telling about me? I’m on my way, but I’m very down bad for this person, and every time they call me, I just show up,” she explained, laughing. “…Then ‘Carnage’ is just trying to reconcile all that. Basically, the song Carnage is, ‘All my loving amounted to nothing, maybe someday I’ll learn.’ That’s the whole thing. I’m dealing with this carnage of everything I’ve gone through, and I’m trying to get over it. I’m trying to move past it, but I’m not there yet.”

For Chase, lyrics are a form of meditation, a way to channel her own internal thoughts to a more tangible medium. “What inspires me to write is basically confronting my feelings and my own history. All my songs are basically stories about stuff that’s happened in my life. So I’m very inspired by confessional literature and just the idea of confessional songwriting style,” she said.

The cover of Carnage is its own confession, too. With Easter eggs to Chase’s aesthetic of “chance” imagery—think dice, playing cards, billiards—there is also the element of reverence shown in the almost religious-esque setup. It’s a dichotomy that pulls together the varying themes seen in Carnage’s lyricism, the resurrection arc from “Bad” to “Pure.”

“An example of a confession is going to mass and confessing your sins,” Chase said. “That’s some imagery I wanted to bring in. So it’s a weird intersection between religious hope and wishes. You have your religious side of it, and then also just pure luck and chance and hope.”

Carnage, though, is far from being the end for Chase. If anything, it’s barely scratched the surface of the beginning. “My end goal is just to create more, tell more stories in a way that you would write a series of novels. Like, they come out, and you have this historical record of the things you’ve gone through in life, and the emotions and the people involved,” she said, almost nostalgic for the future. “I would love to have a discography that represents those stories in a way that I am proud of.”

With two singles on the way, the music video for “Unemployment,” and behind-the-scenes lyric videos already available on her YouTube, it’s clear that for Jess Chase, the music is its own form of absolution.

Photo courtesy of Jess Chase | Interviewed on November 21, 2025