(Words Selim Bulut)

The title of Any Minute Now, the new EP from Chicago-based artist and producer Softmax, conveys the sense of being on the edge: waiting for the other shoe to drop, for the next wave to hit; the anticipatory state of being just before something. Across the EP’s eight songs, Softmax
expresses different versions of anticipation, from its most anxious and fearful iteration, to the almost peaceful state that can be reached once one resigns themselves to its arrival – whatever the “it” might be.

Drawing inspiration from nonconformist artists like This Mortal Coil, Swamp Dogg, and Arthur Russell, as well as the sleek pop music of Roxy Music and the Eurythmics, Softmax explores the nature of online communication in 2023, and what happens if you feel you can’t adapt to a
changing technological landscape. “Feeling like everything is moving in this direction, and I’m staying still,” Softmax says.

When she was eight years old, Softmax started to present symptoms of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD). Though she had been able to manage the condition into adulthood, the onset of the pandemic triggered a “paranoid OCD spiral” that saw the condition’s most compulsive
aspects reemerge. Those symptoms manifested in an obsession with privacy, specifically the fear that her privacy was being invaded via social media. She became fixated on the superficial and lonely aspects of modern communication: the longing for connection, the “crushing
paranoia and fear” of being constantly seen online but never understood as a person, the constant existential dread that makes it feel impossible to do enough, or sometimes do anything at all.

While she’s in a much better place today, the experience shaped the dramatic and dystopian storytelling of Any Minute Now. On the previously released lead single “Swishers”, she explores the sense of receding into oneself while everybody around you is outwardly projecting their best selves on the internet. “It’s about wanting to connect with the world and understand people, while feeling further and further away from it,” she says.

This theme resurfaces on the ironically upbeat closing track “Obsolete”, where the EP takes its title. “It’s a cathartic acceptance that maybe I just can’t keep up anymore. I’ll just go obsolete, I’ll be a relic of my time,” Softmax says.

Softmax cites books like Steve Toltz’s Here Goes Nothing and a road trip to the remote strangeness of Utah’s Moab as contributing to the overall shape of the EP, while another unlikely source of inspiration was a chemical plant fire in her home state of Illinois. “Chemical fires can’t be put out with water, and the fire was too big to deprive of oxygen, so the best they could do was contain it and wait for it to eventually burn out,” Softmax explains.

She was reminded of the grieving process – resistant to intervention, until manageable enough to receive help. This self-evidently inspired the song “Chemical Fire”, with arpeggios that mirror the fire’s imagery – beautiful and hypnotic, terrible and melancholy – but it also informed her song
“Longing”, in which the ever-burning fire reflects a deep yearning: “Time, observation, and solitude were the only things able to make it go down.”

Softmax was born and raised in Chicago. Growing up, she played guitar and keys, drawing melodic inspiration from the city’s blues heritage – but it was upon discovering electronic music that her ears were opened up to the infinite possibilities of production. She first started producing music as a teenager, when she created a song from scratch by recording only her
voice, layering vocal after vocal to create harmonies, and creating a rhythm out of handclaps. Amazed that she could create a full song literally out of nothing, she delved deeper into the production process, using sound as a way to express deeper emotions than notes and lyrics
alone. Today, she cites OutKast and Timbaland as heroes – artists who were never afraid of challenging their listeners sonically and lyrically, packaging avant-garde ideas within a popular music framework.

Any Minute Now features co-production from Samuel Organ (whose previous collaborations include Caroline Polachek and Iglooghost), Gabriel Gifford (IMOGEN, LYAM) and Joel Ford (Oneohtrix Point Never and How To Dress Well). It follows Softmax’s 2021 debut But What if There Isn’t?, her recent collaboration on Gabriel Gifford's 'Calling Out 4 U', and a support slot for Lola Young in her hometown of Chicago.