NÆ and Blizz Escape Earthly Chaos on “Anti-Gravity”

At a time when so much pop music feels obsessed with minimalism, detachment, and aesthetic coolness, NÆ and Blizz are doing something way more interesting: they’re making art that’s unapologetically imaginative. Their latest single, “Anti-Gravity,” doesn’t just sound like a song. It feels like stepping into a fully-built universe where sci-fi storytelling, emotional honesty, camp, and groove all exist in the same orbit.

The Chicago-based duo leans fully into their cosmic identity without letting the concept overpower the music itself. That’s the difference. A lot of “art pop” collapses under its own ambition. “Anti-Gravity” actually lands because underneath the intergalactic aesthetics and playful world-building is a genuinely well-crafted record with real emotional weight.

Built around live drums, warm synth textures, pulsing basslines, and one of the most unexpectedly satisfying trumpet solos you’ll hear this year, the track feels cinematic without becoming overly polished or sterile. There’s still texture here. Humanity. You can hear the physicality of the instruments and the collaborative chemistry between the band members in a way that makes the song feel alive instead of digitally assembled.

Lyrically, “Anti-Gravity” explores escapism, but not in the self-destructive sense. The song frames imagination as survival. Floating above the noise of modern life becomes less about avoiding reality and more about reconnecting with wonder, empathy, and emotional balance during overwhelming times. That emotional undercurrent gives the track surprising depth beneath all its colorful spectacle.

The NPR Tiny Desk Contest entry tied to the release only strengthens that identity further. Instead of chasing hyper-polished perfection, NÆ and Blizz embraced the handmade imperfections of their DIY NASA-inspired set design, creating something that feels personal, tactile, and genuinely creative in a digital era where authenticity is becoming increasingly manufactured.

What’s especially smart is how the duo continues extending the world of “Anti-Gravity” beyond streaming platforms. Through ongoing sci-fi sketches, narrative social content, and serialized visual storytelling online, they’re building an actual universe around the music instead of relying on disposable promotional cycles.

With “Anti-Gravity,” NÆ and Blizz prove that fun, theatricality, and artistic substance don’t have to exist separately. Sometimes, the most radical thing artists can do right now is let people feel joy again.

“Anti-Gravity” feels escapist on the surface, but there’s also a deeper emotional undercurrent about isolation, connection, and survival. When you were writing the song in 2021, what emotional realities were you both trying to process through this sci-fi lens? 

NÆ: Hi BUZZMUSIC! Thank you for hosting this interview and diving deeper into our music and art. I’m glad you asked about this; when we were writing “Anti-Gravity”, Blizz and I were reflecting on our sense of dissociation during the global events in 2021. At the same time, we were connecting with artists and musicians in online spaces, sharing stories, finding community, while valuing new and old friendships. We’re still close with many of the creatives we met at that time.

Blizz: When writing Anti-Gravity, we were focused on finding a calm space mentally, in a world that had been in upheaval due to COVID, income disruptions, and family and friend restructuring. This song was a reflection on the surreal experience of navigating these complex and emotional landscapes personally, while existing as a part of this experience globally.    

We were searching for calmness. Anti-Gravity expresses these thoughts that while “calm” can be found in floating away, it is paradoxical because that leaves one ungrounded, without connection, possibly peaceful, but always temporary. 

The song reflects that paradox. This idea of disconnecting to find calmness, to survive the stresses that one finds themselves in, but knowing that the groove must come to an end, the song must come to its conclusion, and we will fall back to the world below, which is indicated in the last seconds of the song with the pitch-falling horn chords and massive tempo slow down.

NÆ: Yeah, good point, Blizz, the song structure definitely reflects that sentiment. Buzz Music, you also mentioned the “sci-fi lens” in our work. We use that to explore various social and cultural realities as a part of the world-building we began around the time of writing “Anti-Gravity”. It started with our series, Saturnae, which was a monthly show we produced and performed live on YouTube. It became a practice of script-writing, puppet-building, and set-designing as we began to draft the backstory of our characters in an alternate universe.

A lot of artists use world-building as pure branding, but with NÆ and Blizz, it genuinely feels tied to the music itself. At what point did you realize this project needed to exist as an entire universe rather than just a band releasing songs?

NÆ: That’s a good observation. For us, it comes back to this idea of speculative imagination. We want to ask, “What if things could work differently?” or “What if our identities, society, technology, and relationships weren’t trapped by the current rules and norms?” As a larger conceptual arc to the ideas we explore in the music, this allows a space to push the boundaries of what’s possible and introduce new ways of approaching or thinking about problems. 

Blizz: I’d add that the NÆ Universe started before the music. We had the idea of building something campy and fun; “Magic School Bus”-meets-” Wayne's World” energy was foundational to the live streaming we started doing during the pandemic. The songs and music became a soundtrack throughout the Saturnae series of shows. We wrote new songs oriented around interviews with experts in various scientific and humanities fields.  

The NÆ experience, when we perform live, extends the world that we built in a studio and brings it to the live stage. We write a new script for each show we play live, and we often have characters join us through audio clips (like our supercomputer Kionius) or we puppet them during the live shows (like Sparkleface the unicorn, or our new friend Xob). If they've dug into the lore, our fans will recognize the characters and talk to us about the story after the show. We want to reflect a range of emotions and experiences in a way that the audience leaves with an adventure story more than a sing-along experience.

NÆ: Totally, Blizz. In the NÆ universe, each chapter of the adventure introduces NÆ and Blizz to an alien culture or a puzzle to solve. In some instances, the duo reaches out for help from experts in a specialized field - from biology to history to philosophy. And they often rely on their Ice Cream Advisors (fans in the online and offline world) to help them generate musical fuel to power the spaceship. Our themes come back to community and working together, instead of trying to endure difficult situations alone.

Your NPR Tiny Desk entry intentionally embraced the handmade, imperfect nature of the set design instead of hiding it. In an era where everything online is hyper-curated and polished, was that decision partly a statement about authenticity and creativity?

Blizz: Yes! Part of the ethos around the NAE Universe is that we are not hiding the seams. We want people to see the edges, to think about the craft, see the paper cut out, the strings on the puppet, and the pitch-changer for doing character voices. In our NPR Tiny Desk submission, we show the intro take, the hand-built to-scale NASA console, and the loop pedal for the bass so that I can jump over and play trumpet!  

NÆ: To add to what Blizz mentioned, we’re really interested in a sense of honesty in handmade materials and practical effects. We want our audiences (online and at our live shows) to see the human hand in our world-building. For us, it makes the experience of our work more accessible, but doesn’t necessarily interrupt the magic of being in the world we’re creating. The wires, clamps, paper textures, and foam NASA console are all a part of the visual language we’re creating, but also feel like something you could build yourself at your kitchen table. 

Blizz: One of the most fulfilling things for me is when we see fans creating their own fan art, unleashing their creativity around the ideas that we are exploring. While we’ve created characters and this alternative universe as a place for commentary on various situations and human emotions, the act of creativity is an umbrella that encompasses every aspect of the reason we create. And under that umbrella is the invitation to create with us; we extend it to folks who experience our art.

The pre-production, set design, camera shots, lighting cues, and timing for our NPR Tiny Desk video took about 40 hours. Then we brought in the amazing musicians that performed with us, Lucas Gillan on drums and Dan Murphy on Keys, cinematographer Kristen Smith, and our production assistant Lilith Sleater, for the day of the shoot. That is time well spent if folks can see the seams, enjoy the music, and dive into the story!

NÆ: Speaking of that, one of my favorite moments in our NPR Tiny Desk entry is at the beginning, when Dan (our keyboardist) takes a bite from an ice cream cone while the camera pans. I made the ice cream prop from craft materials in my kitchen, but for a quick moment, there’s a sense that it’s real!

The combination of camp aesthetics, trumpet solos, synth-pop, comedy sketches, and emotional storytelling shouldn’t work as naturally as it does, yet somehow it does. How do you balance experimentation without losing the emotional center of the music?

NÆ: For us, we don’t approach comedy solely as entertainment. Historically and in the ancient world, comedy was considered a serious cultural technology (you can look at Frogs by Aristophanes, or even Homer’s The Odyssey). Comedy has long been a way to endure crisis and speak out against systems of power. In this way, humor becomes a survival tool. We use sci-fi, absurd situations, and comedy to process modern anxieties.

I mentioned earlier in our conversation about world-building that we invite viewers into a space with rules and social norms that may not make sense. For example, could two defecting Ice Cream Ambassadors travel through space and escape a black hole by fueling their tank with comment emojis submitted by their social media followers? In our universe, it is possible. The emoji commenters demonstrate that they, too, are a part of a community with a common goal (saving the ship). The sketch, comedy, and the participatory aspect of it, we hope, offer a means of remaining oriented within uncertain times. I think that is emotionally quite powerful. Blizz: That’s a great point, NÆ. To speak a little about how this plays out on a live stage, we create the show we would want to experience! Rarely do we spend time aiming at any specific “commercially-viable bullseye”. We feel like our approach creates a unique experience, where people see the intent, love the music, and experience the live story unfold in a 20-minute set, 1.5-hour show, on a big stage, or in a small bar. 

We hope audiences will remember the show with the giant blow-up unicorn, or the glowing supercomputer, or the disco-ball artifact in the 1960s suitcase… for decades.

I approach every show with the intensity of putting on a great performance at a massive venue for a million people, no matter the size of the room. When we’re building a performance, I’m always asking: how can the story become a thread that ties together all the experimentation, weird ideas, arts and crafts so it feels connected and cohesive?

“Anti-Gravity” talks a lot about freedom and floating above the noise of the world. As artists creating during such politically, socially, and digitally overwhelming times, what does freedom actually mean to you now compared to when you first started making music?

NÆ: This is a great question, and nods to the fact that we’re constantly evolving as artists (and as humans). I think creative work, in many ways, is about reclaiming agency. We live in systems that constantly ask us to consume: content, products, experiences, attention. It can feel overwhelming and nonstop, like you mentioned. 

For me, creating is almost the opposite of that. It is a way of resisting consumption and reconnecting with something human. When you make something, you step outside of the cycle of constantly taking things in, and instead contribute something of your own. I don’t know if I could have articulated that as clearly when I first started making music and art. Over time, I’ve realized that creativity begins as instinct and then deepens through research, investigation, experimentation, and self-reflection. There’s a real sense of freedom in that process. 

Blizz: When I started creating music, it was something I just did. Pretty much every day. I didn't think about the impact of creating; I didn't think about why I was doing it. I was a kid, and it was enjoyable. All of it. The work, the time, the friends that were as into it as I was, the craft and progress, studying the professionals (in my case, the 1960’s jazz greats) who came before me... All of it was just fun.

To add to what NÆ was saying, we are creating in a current environment where social media has made shaming people a norm, political opinions and health advice are expressed behind pseudonyms on online forums - then amplified and taken seriously by news outlets, “leadership” as inspirational, dignified, and thoughtful, something to aspire towards, has been trampled by people in positions of power. In this space, it seems even more important to encourage the folks around us and ourselves to create! 

To find the voice and the things that each individual loves, and jump into the process. To explore, not scroll, human emotions and one's own experience. To dip our collective hands into paint and glitter, grab scissors and paper, stack with rocks and mud, build stories with typewriters and puppets, and make something that is meaningful to the individual and the people they love. 

NÆ: Well-said, Blizz. I’d also mention that we’re not trying to escape politics, social realities, or digital noise - we actually actively engage with those things, especially with social media and performance. But through the sci-fi world of the “Unaeverse”, we can reimagine ideas around desire, identity, mobility, style, and belonging.

When the real world feels too broken to fix directly, I think comedy and imagination can become ways of inventing something new. That being said, we acknowledge that even the most imaginative worlds can reproduce the same hierarchies and contradictions of the real world. That is totally a part of our bit. The “Unaeverse” reflects many of the same systems, absurdities, and inequities we experience in everyday life. We don’t pretend to exist outside of those systems. We’re acknowledging that we are a part of them, too.

Blizz: Exactly. And by creating, by bringing one's own experience and identity, we will build more trust, more unity, more acceptance, better understanding, better communication, and more discernment. As people, we must create. It acts as a form of rebellion against systemic structures that are designed to benefit those who control the narrative and purse strings.  

So, in today’s environment, building for the sake of building, exploring art and music that have come before, and just doing it because it’s enjoyable is as important as ever… And it’s fun. Which is as good a reason as any.