Karleshia Reclaims Their Voice with Powerful Debut Concept EP ‘Church Trauma’
Following the chart-topping success of their recent singles, the former worship leader breaks a seven-year silence to deliver an emotionally unyielding, beautifully visceral 4-track body of work.
Karleshia has had a remarkable emergence into the Aotearoa music scene – their confronting debut single Holy Low stormed the NZ Top 20 Singles Chart at #13 and their poignant follow-up Altar landed straight in at #7, further cementing their place as a divinely singular new voice on the local scene.
Today sees the alt-folk indie artist officially release their highly anticipated debut EP Church Trauma, an immersive, autobiographical timeline of faith, institutional exile, sexuality, and self-reclamation that crosses the cinematic, dark-ambient expanses of RY X and the raw, vulnerable lyricism of Dallas Green (City and Colour). Karleshia recorded and produced the EP, with production mentoring and all mixing from Neil MacLeod of Holdfast Recordings (Drax Project).
After ten years deeply embedded as a worship and a young adults leader, Karleshia’s world was abruptly dismantled when they came out to their church community. The devastating heartbreak resulted in a sudden, seven-year exile from creating and performing music entirely.
Now those years of processing and healing have culminated in a confession in melody – a starkly honest, cohesive 4-track collection. Written with an intentional “less is more” approach, the project directly mirrors the poetic, biblically-inspired language used in weekly sermons across the world – repurposing those very tools to point a lens back at institutional systemic faults.
While the charting singles Holy Low and Altar established the EP’s thematic foundation – confronting the perils of systemic religious exploitation and the final, cathartic act of walking away – the full EP expands this world with two brand-new focus tracks that complete Karleshia’s chronological narrative arc.
‘Peaceful Ignorance’ acts as a haunting exploration of being under rigid institutional leadership. It directly challenges the dissonance between what a church preaches versus what it practices. Highlighting the isolation of being left to process internal turmoil along, the track delivers cutting lyrical truths: “Not knowing, unseeing. Refusal to speak. Neglectance and unacceptance – this is what you teach.”
Closing track ‘Hectic’ serves as the project’s emotional resolution. Moving past the heavy questions of identity and the initial devastation of exile, the song captures the profound transition into finding a new home and peace within their own sense of self. It beautifully balances fragility with a newfound quiet strength: “Who am I now, but fragile and unspoken. Someone tell me, will I ever understand?”
“This project is my way of exploring the juxtapositions and cognitive dissonance of faith.” Karleshia explains. “As I came to terms with my sexuality, I couldn’t help but feel that the love I was feeling for myself no longer aligned with the love I once found in faith. My hope is that by breaking my own silence, it opens up a safe space for others to heal and discuss their own trauma around religion, because I know I am not the only one.”
With a soaring, otherworldly vocal presence that famously holds live rooms in absolute, pin-drop silence, Church Trauma marks the arrival of an uncompromising storyteller who is no longer fighting an internal battle – they are simply making devastatingly beautiful music.
Church Trauma is available from Friday 30 October. To celebrate the release, Karleshia will perform the EP in full at The Darkroom in Christchurch on Thursday 5 November.
KARLESHIA – CHURCH TRAUMA EP RELEASE SHOW
with Elizabeth and the Coven + Pyrrhic + Deborah Wilding
Thursday 5 November @ Darkroom, Christchurch
Tickets from Under The Radar here
