Poetry Meets Electronic Music: Suli Breaks Talks Upcoming EP

The upcoming ‘Synthetic Heartbreak’ EP by Suli Breaks will be released on Friday, June 14th. It’s a reminder that even in this digital era, our emotions continue to be fundamental in our entire lives.

With his art, poetry continues to expand alongside electronic melodies. Get to know all the musical details in this fresh interview.

1 — The title of your EP juxtaposes ‘synthetic’ and ‘heartbreak’ interestingly. Could you share the significance behind it?

It’s meant to reflect the dynamics between emotions and technology. The way we communicate today exists on a spectrum between these two elements. We communicate through the technology and tools we have, but there is always that raw human component that will always exist. In some ways, it’s an oxymoron, but I feel the title makes it more poignant. I truly wanted to provoke thought, and the sound emphasizes that.

2 – What inspired you to explore themes of love, loss, and digital disconnection in this material?

The theme of love is something I have been exploring a lot more recently. As I have grown, my relationship with love has changed—with my spouse, with having children, with my parents, and all the different elements that come with adult life and growing up. I have come to appreciate love in a different way, and I realize that love is such a universal theme in anyone’s life. As an artist trying to relate to everyone’s experience to some capacity, love has become the thread woven between everything. The sonics allowed me to tell that story because typically, love stories are expressed in a specific environment and way. I feel it would be interesting to explore love in a different context.

3 – Is this your first time combining spoken word with electronic music, or have you done it before?

This isn’t my first time; We did a lot of work on the Faithless album and we are still doing a lot of work with them, and it was my first time really seeing the power of electronic music as a catalyst for conversation and as a medium for communicating emotions and ideas. That’s where we started to explore it as a collective. M4L4Y4 and I thought this was a great way to expand what we did with spoken word into a different medium.

4 – Do you think your songs transcend music and enter the realm of poetry?

I don’t think “transcending into poetry” is the best way to articulate what we are doing; I think it is more about expanding. All music is poetry, all art is poetry, and all forms of expression have a poetic element. I think it’s about tapping into the poetry within the music.

5 – What ignited your love for poetry? Was it through books, or is it something innate in you?

It started early with reading—not necessarily poetry, but stories—and discovering how authors and storytellers communicated through their artistry or the written medium. I always loved the idea of storytelling, and when I discovered Hip-Hop, it became more rhythmic, structured, and self-contained, which led me to poetry.

6 – Out of the 5 tracks on the EP, do you have a favorite?

Out of the five tracks, “Empty Me” is the catalyst of the journey. It made us feel that the sound we were trying to create could work. It has never been difficult for me to create words—I have been doing this for years and perfecting my style—but it took a while to find the right balance with music and to find a vocalist who could truly resonate with what we were trying to produce.

7 – Did you collaborate with other artists on this project? What did they bring to the table?

The main collaborator on this project, my partner in sound, M4L4Y4, he’s produced under many pseudonyms. We’ve been working together since university days. It’s crazy that after over a decade, we’ve figured out a sound and approach. We’ve experimented over the years, but now we’ve reached a point that allows both of us to shine and create a sound that could reach different demographics and expand the audience who connect with our work. We’ve also collaborated with Alex B, who contributed her amazing songwriting and vocal skills. Additionally, we involved Sheerendar Kaur, an animation artist known for her work on animation in Street Fighter 5, who led the creation of the character on the EP cover. The level of detail in the imagery of the cover is exceptional.

8 – What’s the main reason listeners should check out this new EP?

People should check out the project because it’s unique in the sense that it is layered. No disrespect to anyone else’s music, but I rarely see a combination of electronic music with storytelling elements. Conceptually, the whole EP is designed to tell a story centred around one emotion. If you are looking for something you can connect with and vibe to on a serious level, the EP has those elements.

9 – How would you describe the sound of your songs in just three words?

Innovative, personal, transitionary.

10 – What do you plan to explore or do in the next few months after promoting this EP?

After promoting the release of the EP, we are working to curate a live performance alongside the pipeline of future music we have in place. A big part of spoken word and electronic music is performance. We are looking into how we can formulate this to bring it to our audience, making it personal and bringing it to life while still keeping what we created as part of the show. We are really excited about this phase.

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