It’s easy to get lost in an echo chamber - for many young inner-city dwellers in Australia, that’s a liberal bubble. But it’s also easy to forget that the values and privileges we support in these circles aren’t always practised, both outside and inside the bubble’s boundaries. That’s where artists like nite fruit excel. The self-described electronic ‘witchpop’ duo of Prani (she/her) and Kitty (they/them) are continuing to reaffirm messaging around respect and boundary-setting. Propelled by standout track ‘Mine’ and continued across the entire EP, Disintegrate is a showcase of the duo’s expansive potential to dominate a genre in vogue.

nite fruit have been slowly snaking 🐍 their way into the scene over the last year or so, playing at The Tote, The Post Office Hotel, and in other musical projects. They know their niche and are fully primed to become its authorities in this pocket of Melbourne. The duo leans into an appreciative and welcoming community, with ‘Mine’ premiering via PBS show fave Homebrew with Kurt Eckardt (Hearts & Rockets, Psychic Hysteria) just this week. A credit to nite fruit’s relatively recent impact on the scene, the Homebrew recommendation comes based on personal experience - apparently, nite fruit live shows are described to often turn quickly from “DIY performance to all-out dance party”. That’s an easy sell, regardless of the duo’s repertoire.

Introducing the EP, ‘Mine’ is an abrupt start. Warped barking surrounds you alarmingly before immediately dropping into wobbling synths, static squeaks, and a faded voice. It’s these lilting vocals, rising as calmly as a breath, that delivers the track’s core message - “my body belongs to me”. nite fruit deliver simple, haunting lines that detail a relationship’s struggle in finding a balance between intimacy and trust whilst respecting boundaries. It’s all the more agitating when you consider that it’s a message still necessary to repeat.

While the themes change and develop as the EP progresses, there’s a compelling sense of menace and weightiness across Disintegrate, perhaps due to the elusive blend of dark, sinister synths crossed with their direct delivery. Just as the silken harmonies and whispery vocals of ‘Mine’ are eventually replaced by ominous synth stabs and a turbulent backbeat, the lightness continues to dissipate as we head deeper in; with the title track’s stark, stuttering groove, the unsettling shifts in atmosphere on ‘Scorpio Rising’, or the looming pulsations of ‘Burning Through’ which continually heighten the tension for its full six-minute runtime.

Across these tracks, we’re met with spaceship warbles, crunching percussive doors, robotic barking noises and eerie industrial samples - a warping of the familiar like a house in a sci-fi thriller - which is where Disintegrate succeeds most. No matter how sweetly nite fruit sing or how illuminating the soundscapes may sound, there’s always a dark and insidious undercurrent bubbling underneath. A warning against complacency, and a thrilling one at that.