VÏKAE Announces EP + Releases Title Track ‘Welcome To The End of The World’
Seven songs, 23 minutes and two and a half years in the making.
On 28 August, VÏKAE opens the door to her most ambitious project yet with Welcome To The End of The World, the title track from her forthcoming EP of the same name.
Written predominantly by VÏKAE, co-written and produced alongside Will Henderson, then mixed and mastered by Ryan Kirby, the record moves between cinematic electronic pop and protest music while exploring war, queer rights, political instability, technology, identity and the increasingly strange experience of being alive right now.
The record is primarily in English, with Ukrainian and Russian appearing throughout.
Born in Kyiv and raised in Aotearoa, VÏKAE has spent much of her life navigating different cultures, languages and ideas of home. As war reshaped the country of her birth and the wider political climate became increasingly consumed by questions of rights, identity and instability, those tensions naturally began finding their way into the music.
“I don’t think I consciously decided I was going to make protest music. Eventually writing around everything happening in the world started to feel more dishonest than actually writing about it.”
The EP was also created during a period where VÏKAE’s own life changed significantly.
During its two and a half year creation, she was diagnosed with hypermobile Ehlers Danlos syndrome, POTS and MCAS alongside a number of associated health complications. It meant reconsidering the physical realities of recording, performing and sustaining a career in music.
Sessions moved. Recovery became part of the process. Some things simply had to be done differently. What emerged was not a record about illness, but one shaped by a new sense of urgency.
“I had to stop thinking about how much I could force myself to do and start thinking about what was actually worth doing. Once I figured that out, the whole project became much clearer.”
The result is a tightly constructed 23 minute body of work that marks a darker, more cinematic and more politically direct chapter for VÏKAE.
That new era will also reach the stage on 26 September, when VÏKAE co-headlines Corban Estate Arts Centre with Vanessa Tottle, with further live dates currently in development.
Welcome To The End of The World arrives 28 August 2026.
The full EP Welcome To The End of The World follows 30 October 2026.
Give her 23 minutes.
