Earlier this month, Edmonton-based pseudo-antigone (the experimental pop project of philosopher and interdisciplinary artist Simone Atenea Medina Polo), released her excellent fourth album Melancholic Melodrama. Throughout fourteen tracks, pseudo-antigone tracks the rise and fall of the Popstar, an artist who gives up her humanity to make it big, with incredibly visual lyrics, superb vocal delivery, and extremely danceable beats.
The album is a culmination of years of creative output, from the enhanced production to the crafting of the songs. Since the release of her debut album Into the Void of Infinite Sadness in 2021, a lot has happened in pseudo-antigone’s life and Melancholic Melodrama draws on those experiences to find catharsis. Speaking about how the album came about, pseudo-antigone said,
"Towards the end of 2021, I had already a draft far along the way for what would become the self-titled album I released in 2024. There was a stark gap in time between releases as, to put it discreetly, I ended up in a harsh living environment where I was discouraged from pursuing music endeavours. As I came out from this situation and started putting stuff out again, I felt like I missed my chance and lost any momentum the project had. The self-titled didn’t get much attention — which is really fine with me, I just wanted to finish that project that sat in limbo for several years. But since I am a one gal operation doing all the music and PR, it felt personally bad at times.
Leading up to the release earlier in 2025 of lovers (confusing and messy is what i am here for), I was feeling dejected about the project. Basically just asking the question: does anyone care or even like what I do? I was feeling depressed and anxious, overwhelming myself by trying to bolster and push the release as much as possible. I had just started therapy again back in September 2024, so I ended up discussing much of this with my therapist. My therapist and girlfriend at the time helped me greatly throughout that whole span of time in the process of recovery from the survival mode I was once in, and along the way I learned just how much pressure I put on myself. I had to learn to discern the difference between intrinsic and extrinsic motivations around making music. I also had to relearn that music was something I did to take care of myself and my immediate relations first and foremost.
Melancholic Melodrama was conceived and built out of the anxieties and concerns I plagued myself with whenever I tried to force a creative vision out. I felt like I missed my chance to develop the momentum I had with the project back in 2021. I was recovering from trauma throughout a good portion of 2024. I overwhelmed myself with all these expectations I placed on myself, possibly out of the traumatic immigrant inclination to have to only rely on yourself to hustle your way into any place. I was crashing out before I released lovers. I actually rushed its release so I didn’t have to think about it anymore.
The story in Melancholic Melodrama is a fictionalization of the tension between these anxieties and the fantasy of becoming The Popstar through the exaggeration of my character and ambitions in this project. The story of an insecure artist who gave up her humanity in a Faustian pact to become this inhuman Idol was a way in which I confronted my own artistic practice and vision. I’ve described this project to my peers in the academic psychoanalytic world that the story is about traversing the fantasy of becoming a Popstar which occludes these anxieties that point towards something unsettlingly real. And in that traversal, the protagonist undergoes what we call “subjective destitution” by assuming her contrived contradictions and tensions as her own rather than obsessively fixating over this rigid ideal. This album could only happen in the backdrop of this personal context.”
We also caught up with pseudo-antigone to hear what went into each of the fourteen tracks on the album. Listen to Melancholic Melodrama and read the track-by-track breakdown below!