If you’re familiar with Eddie Johnston’s work as Lontalius, then you’ll know he likes to keep busy. The Auckland native has built up a fervent fanbase on this side of the world over the course of three albums, and the last we heard from him was 2021’s Someone Will Be There For You, re-released last year as a deluxe edition.
By the time that dropped last April, Johnston was already at work on new material, and the fruits of that labor are almost ready to share. In the meantime, his new song “I Want, I Want, I Want” acts as an introduction to an unabashedly queer journey of love, loss, and self-discovery. The single wears its heart on its sleeve, swept along by fuzzy melodies and an electronic drum loop that’s every bit as insistent as Johnston’s declarations of longing, his pleas tempered by indecision.
“The song is an expression of frustration and angst towards pretty much everything in life, and the feeling that the person you’re dancing beside might solve everything,” he shares. “It’s not a rational feeling, and I’m sure all that angst is just projection, but I think I needed to say it out loud. I usually express myself in a more downtempo energy, but it felt right to let this one go off the rails.”
Sometimes you just have to get stuff off your chest, and Johnston expresses that in as forthright a manner as he can. Tune in below.
