Essvus — What Ails You

essvus

What ails you

On Friday, December 5, 2025, New Amsterdam Records releases the debut album, What Ails You, by alumni of the New Amsterdam Genre-Fluid Composers Lab, Essvus (Gen Morigami).

What Ails You is a noise-driven, IDM-influenced, mesmerizing and cathartic expression of music producer Essvus’ (Gen Morigami) long struggles with mental health, familial estrangement, and reconnection with art, creation, and community. “When I started working on this music, I was in the midst of a severe, self-destructive depression that had already lasted for years,” explains Essvus. “I hadn’t come to terms with the fact that my father was a cult leader until 2020, when, in one of his outbursts, he cut ties with me over email. It was a manipulation tactic, to make me crawl back to him. Only then did I realize I had endured decades of narcissistic abuse and psychological torment." On What Ails You, Essvus weaves his way through a tangle of warmth, solace, and beauty enmeshed with darker aspects of life.

This dynamic release is a part of an exciting new initiative of the Composers Lab, an educational and community-building space developed by NewAm in 2017 that has included over 140 participants from 12 countries and over 20 states in both its online and in-person activities. while a number of lab alumni have released albums with NewAm before, this initiative is an effort to broaden NewAm’s support for early career artists, addressing the growing need for outlets of representation in the shrinking infrastructure for independent, vision-centered music.

With this new series, New Amsterdam opens a new pathway for much-needed support and exposure to vital new voices within our community. now more than ever, professionally released and promoted recordings are key to building sustainable careers for artists creating visionary projects that cannot be accommodated by a genre-based musical infrastructure.

About What Ails You
What Ails You is a noise-driven, IDM-influenced, and mesmerizing cathartic expression of composer Essvus’ (Gen Morigami) long struggle with mental health, familial estrangement, and a reconnection with art, creation, and like-minded community. “When I started working on this music I was in the midst of a severe, self-destructive depression that had already lasted for years,” explains Essvus. “The initial stage of the 2020 quarantine was a turning point, when a critical argument led me to the realization that my father was a cult leader, and that what I had endured all that time was the result of decades of narcissistic abuse and deep, uncountable layers of psychological torment.” On What Ails You, Essvus weaves his way through the tangle of emotions ranging from the lowest lows to the warmth, solace, and beauty intermingling with other aspects of life.
What Ails You conjoins an EP created by Essvus while still living in a cult with music developed at CalArts, and later New Amsterdam’s Composer’s Lab. These latter experiences began to pave a long path towards inner growth, processing, and healing through the arts. “I began attending CalArts for my master’s program in 2020, and for the first time found a community of like-minded artists that were engaged in boundary-pushing art and practice.”
Essvus’ musical worlds inhabit the full spectrum of emotion, often with contrasting colors existing at the same time. Album opener “Inner Violence” is both primal and melancholic, driving and introspective. “The title speaks to the turmoil I was experiencing before I left the cult, since I was still squarely in the depression that took so much out of me at the time.” Moody keys sit over layered, punchy drums and organic instrumentation underscored by meticulous sound design.
“To Not Think" opens with a playful sense of sound and silence before jumping into a rhythmically dense world riddled with distorted percussion. Of the song's lyrical mantra, the composer explains, “When I went through my depression, one idea I had was that perhaps I could think my way out of it: if I thought hard and well enough, I could analyze the information on my own and draw a correct solution. It was an important lesson to learn that that isn’t how it works.”
The kaleidoscopic sound world of “Warmth” is a reflection on a transient feeling of connection. Essvus tells us “I started this track by looping hi-hats in the Tatum Lounge at CalArts, as I was waiting for the weekly evening gallery night event to begin. At the time, I had a bit of a personal connection forming, but it fell apart before I even got the drums done. Still, for a moment, I felt optimistic, human warmth, even as the air was cold and I hadn’t maybe quite felt that way in a long time.”
The distorted vocals heard on “Every Hope, A Dream, A Prayer” live alongside clean guitars and shimmering keyboards. These sonic extremes are layered within Essvus’ textural maximalism to create a rushing and energetic track that seeps into the listener. The song is inspired in part by Essvus and his partner’s shared struggles with mental health and their perseverance towards leading a creatively fulfilling life.
Album closer “Counterfactuals” refers to a philosophical term meaning “circumstances that did not come to pass (ie. “what-ifs”).” The track lives around the vocal line “don’t think so hard on yourself” which Essvus explains as “a slight tweak on the phrase ‘don’t be so hard on yourself’” which speaks to “the harm that thinking can inflict when indulged upon as a self-flagellating weapon.” The piece expresses stark contrasts between moments of complete stillness and kinetic motion, culminating in a plucked melody evoking a tidal wave of blooming flowers.
What Ails You sends the listener on an emotional journey through multi-layered sonic and emotional textures, challenging feelings, and moments of bliss. “This music isn’t just about simple contrasts or a straightforward path. It’s a cross-section of my life, in all its confounding ways.”

Tracklist and Credits
1. Inner Violence
2. To Not Think
3. Anesthetic Midnight
4. Never Here
5. Moldsporing
6. Warmth
7. Hell And High Water
8. Every Hope, A Dream, A Prayer
9. Counterfactuals
Produced, engineered, & mixed by: Gen Morigami
Mastered by: John Tejada