Supergloom

When Los Angeles-based musician Brett Ayala Jones began working on music for a solo project, in his head, it sounded like pop music. But the finished product was different. It was darker and heavier, melding twisted, prickly alt-rock, bleached surf, and Midwestern emo-punk with threads of pop melodies and structure. The lyrics leaned toward his past, excavating traumas and pain, negotiating with guilt and loss. A word came to mind: Supergloom.


Jones, who moved to LA from Detroit 13 years ago, says Supergloom—which he started with the intention of splitting the difference between Killing Joke and The Cure—is the embodiment of his brain minus the frontal lobe to moderate his thinking: Supergloom is pure, unsweetened feeling, for better and worse. “I kinda hate the person I am when I’m writing this shit, so Supergloom became this way to name this identity,” says Jones. “It’s like a character in my head, but it’s me at my worst.”


Jones came up in the heart-on-sleeve Midwest emo scene playing guitar with pop punk outfit Fireworks, and while Supergloom bears the musical scars of this upbringing, this music is a deeper shade of dark. Jones’ friends joke that he writes “trauma pop” or “nightmare pop,” and the names feel correct. Emo is the stuff you cry yourself to sleep to. Trauma pop is the stuff that keeps you up at night.


Jones is preparing to release the third Supergloom EP, PENANCE III, beginning on March 23rd.