“Not-so-sad sad boi” Jake Messig, professionally known as INTRN, sings about the melancholic side of things. The San Diego native moved to Los Angeles in 2013 to attend college and found himself inspired to pursue his artist career following a less-than-fulfilling internship in the music industry. Surrounded by a team of like-minded creative professionals whose relationships date back to college, INTRN has built his career on the DIY method.

Following a collection of singles in 2018, his 2019 freshman EP Conflicted and break-out collaboration with Beowülf “Lose A Friend,” INTRN proves to be on a steady trajectory upward, accumulating a fan base in the hundred-thousands of fellow moody individuals.

With this 4 song collection of heart-wrenching, heart string-pulling, tracks — It’s no secret that INTRN is ready to confront an elephant in the room. This project is beyond stunning, and crazily relatable. Well aware that his personal experience with first love lost resembles the conceptual cornerstone of his project thus far, INTRN invites you to join him on his journey of letting go and accepting himself in the process with sophomore EP New Distractions. 

each song represents a different stage of a tumultuous inner-dialogue, so commonly felt, but rarely shared unfiltered. Building upon his conversational lyric style and sonic blend of lofi production and melodic alt pop toplines, New Distractions serves to further solidify the San Diego-native’s idiosyncratic sound. No easy feat in a noisy industry, his dedication to his unique style has independently amassed over 4M streams on Spotify alone and a fan-base nearing the several hundred-thousands, garnering the attention of tastemakers of the likes of Ones to Watch, Ladygunn and We Found New Music. 

Pieced together on a retreat in the woods during quarantine, the majority of the EP was co-written by friends and frequent collaborators Austin Harms, Luke Shrestha and Timothy Dehnert, a crew who have been making music together since their college days. Ready to close the door on the heartbreak which has become his groundbreaking creative catalyst, we dive into each track outlining INTRN’s overarching message of bitter-sweet completion…

“Seams” 

Like snippets stolen from the most private memoirs on your notes app, INTRN recognizes the dangerous notion of accepting that something in love is better than nothing at all. Interweaving personal anecdotes with vulnerable introspection over a gentle piano melody, acoustic guitar riff and atmospheric, R&B-infused production, he muses over holding on against best judgement, for fear of losing the person he loves entirely. 

“Honest” 

Built over an electric-guitar line and flowering, ambient sounds, INTRN admits a lack of honesty within himself. While acknowledging feelings of self-deprecation and ongoing avoidance behaviors, he comes to the conclusion that by circumventing these painful truths, he is stopping himself from finding peace within himself and happiness in the world around him. 

“week or 2”

Chronicling the cyclical nature of chasing love lost, INTRN makes the decision to take the necessary steps to halt the cycle. Sonically mirroring his process of accepting these difficult-to-swallow truths, the music ebbs and flows with his stream conscience, as he realizes why the relationship needed to end and how he has been hurting himself over the past two years of mourning.   

“New Distractions” 

In the cumulative track of the project INTRN captures a moment of loneliness which metamorphoses into unprecedented clarity. Written solo in under an hour, he engages in a painfully honest one sided dialogue with his former love, eventually leading himself to acceptance. Perhaps not the joyous epiphany glorified in the movies, but an awakening which has become his inspiration for change.

“‘New Distractions’ depicts the classic messy break up. That life changing heartbreak you experience and talk, or definitely think, about for more than a few years. ‘New Distractions’ details that moment of clarity, when hopefully one is able to call it quits or at least be able to clearly see what is happening and how to combat that struggle.” – INTRN explains.

This heart-wrenching, scarily relatable new project from INTRN is no doubt a collection of tracks that are going to hit home for a lot of people. This collection of tracks is beyond what many of us have felt and experienced. INTRN perfectly crafted stunning tracks from feelings that.. a lot of us just don’t know how to explain. & he did, and he put them into song — which helps us even more to understand that, just because we’re feeling this way, doesn’t mean that we’re the only ones going through this type of feeling. This EP is truly stunning.

You can follow INTRN on Twitter, Instagram and Spotify. Trust me when I say, this is a project that you don’t want to miss out on. “New Distractions” is out on all platforms, now.