Brooklyn duo cyanotype arrive fully exposed on ‘the urge becomes the trigger,’ a spellbinding debut whose vulnerable lyricism cuts through churning guitars and unfiltered noise, preserving the emotional upheaval of a volatile chapter before time can soften its edges.

Stream: ‘the urge becomes the trigger’ – cyanotype

A cyanotype begins with exposure: Light strikes a prepared surface and leaves behind a deep-blue image of whatever stood in its path.

Brooklyn duo cyanotype make music through a similar act of preservation, allowing a volatile period of their lives to burn itself into distortion and melody. Their debut EP the urge becomes the trigger holds those impressions in five raw, soul-shaking songs, capturing who they were before time could soften the edges.

It’s an exposure in every sense – music fixing fear and desire in place before time can bleach them away.

I feel so angry
all the time at you
Sometimes I wish that
you would die
So I don’t have to
Worry all the time for you
So I wish that you would see
That I’d die for you

The image is
Stuck in my head
Who’s that knocking around my door
Don’t even know what I’m good for

– “wish sometimes,” cyanotype

Atwood Magazine is proud to be premiering the urge becomes the trigger, out everywhere tomorrow, July 17. cyanotype’s debut EP introduces the Brooklyn duo of Silvia K. and J.C. Vargas through a rush of tender turbulence: Vulnerable lyricism, unfiltered noise, and churning guitars press against one another until every buried fear rises to the surface. The result is immediate and deeply human, alive with the friction between wanting to escape and remaining tethered to the very forces pulling them under.

The duo build from complementary instincts. Silvia’s writing begins in language and fragmented impressions, while J.C., a self-taught multi-instrumentalist drawn early to maximalist sound, approaches each piece through texture, tone, and sonic construction. Together, they shape melodic realities from scattered ideas, allowing rough edges and spontaneous performances to remain wherever they carry emotional weight. Taking their band name from “an unidentified engraving of a lady with a harp,” the duo place special weight on the fleeting feelings and impressions that give their music form.

“We’re always trying and never letting go, and constantly neutralizing the thought until it’s understood,” cyanotype tell Atwood Magazine.

Their first EP came to life through a process of gathering and retreat, as cyanotype carried a body of unfinished material out of the city and gave it their undivided attention.

“The outlines were written in-between Brooklyn apartments and basements, but we fully formed it in a week spent in rural West Virginia,” they tell Atwood Magazine. “We confined ourselves to this cabin that only held us and our home studio that we brought over. There’s a lot of honesty and tenderness in what we made… We were both going through a period of turning, and these were written through catharsis and fragments of thought.” Inside the cabin, they built the songs by playing parts directly into their sessions, preserving performances whose force might have faded through repeated refinement.

That removal from daily life gave Silvia and J.C. the space to test the chemistry at the heart of cyanotype, letting the EP become both a creative statement and the foundation of their partnership. “Our vision was to challenge ourselves and learn to work with each other, being the first project we worked on together,” they share. “As we finished each song, our confidence grew together, and we learned what our strengths and faults are – an understanding of each other.” Mixed by Sonny Diperri and mastered by Dave Cooley, the urge becomes the trigger retains the immediacy of the band’s original performances while giving their impact room to expand.

Noise-rock abrasion meets the emotional immediacy of unapologetic alternative music throughout the urge becomes the trigger. Guitars bruise, drone, and break open around Silvia’s voice, giving each song a physical force that never overwhelms its closeness. cyanotype’s music hits hard because it remains exposed at the point of impact – aching, unflinching, and willing to let beauty and damage occupy the same space.

“Our sound refined itself through wanting to make a sonic interior filled with textural density and sharpness that emphasizes and is as important as the words being said,” cyanotype explain. “Its creation wasn’t methodical; we just wanted to make something pure.”

They candidly describe the urge becomes the trigger as “metallic, pure, and sincere.” Its title captures the moment when an internal impulse gathers enough force to become action, with desire itself creating the momentum for change. Across the EP, fear, anger, and longing refuse to remain passive; each emotion pushes toward release, even when the outcome remains unresolved.

the urge becomes the trigger is a five-song collision between melodic seduction and brute force, each track drawing the listener closer before striking harder.

Opener “wish sometimes” slips beneath the skin through a softer, spine-chilling pull, its beauty sharpening the cruelty at its center. Silvia sings, “Sometimes I wish that you would die / So I don’t have to worry all the time for you,” transforming an unforgivable thought into the exhausted confession of a person consumed by another’s pain. The guitars circle and sink around her, holding fury and devotion in the same suffocating embrace.

Any restraint erupts on “clip,” an abrasive confrontation driven by distorted guitars and a rhythm section that seems to shove the song forward by force. Silvia moves between dissociation and accusation, while “Drown with me or I’ll find someone else” drags dependence toward threat. The track’s in-your-face upheaval makes fear physical, filling every open space until the listener has nowhere to retreat.

J.C.’s favorite track, “stare,” emerges as another undeniable highlight, its charm inseparable from its churn. A winding melodic current runs through images of bruised skies and television static, giving the song a strange familiarity even as its structure begins to come apart. cyanotype capture the vertigo of leaving one life behind while the next remains beyond reach.

The EP closes with Silvia’s favorite, “i want you,” a stripped-back, spellbinding acoustic finale that draws its turmoil inward. Fingerpicked guitar and a hollow, spectral vocal cradle the devastating refrain, “i want to be with you / not with you too.” After five songs of distortion, anger, and flight, cyanotype leave us with need in its most unguarded form.

cyanotype are only beginning, yet they come out of the gate with the force of a band already certain of the space they want to occupy.

Dozens of songs emerged during this period, but these five carried a charge cyanotype could not leave unresolved. Recording them became an act of release – a way of closing one chapter while fixing its intensity in sound. the urge becomes the trigger is an intimate fever dream of an eruption – compact in length, dramatic in scope, and spellbinding in the way every texture carries a lived pressure. Across these tracks, the duo establish a musical identity that feels immediate, singular, and built to linger.

For a partnership that began as an experiment in learning how to create together, the finished EP offers its own answer. “I think we know ourselves better as a result of it, and I hope listeners can feel like they can sit inside its structure,” cyanotype share.

Get lost in the urgency and intensity of the urge becomes the trigger via our exclusive stream, and dive into cyanotype’s songs with Atwood Magazine as the duo take us track-by-track through the music and lyrics of their debut EP!

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:: connect with cyanotype here ::

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Stream: ‘the urge becomes the trigger’ – cyanotype

:: Inside the urge becomes the trigger ::

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wish sometimes:

“The most awful thoughts I’ve had are written within ‘wish sometimes.’ Wishing more than anything that this person that has given so much pain because they can’t help themselves would just disappear into thin air. It’s mean, but it’s honest. The sharpness in the guitar and the way everything sounds like sinking and silver. The way it releases and drones calls to the looping thoughts that numbed me out while living through it.” – Silvia K

“The bass carries a weight of emotion, feeling a sense of relief when changing to the higher octave of notes.” – JC Vargas

clip

There was much noise in our life during the writing of “clip,” situations that we were trying to escape, and ignore – “clip” sonically captures that, during this time the fear of others was heavy in our mind. The noise of the distorted guitar was played loudly.

“I was in my now old-basement room in Brooklyn and wrote the riff, the setting of noise I found felt overwhelming, and I enjoyed that” – JC. Vargas

“Everything became a mirror, and I was a mirror for everyone. I looked to intangible things and found nothing helped and no one helps until you help yourself. the first time you feel it, it softens the setting but every time after it’s just dull.” – Silvia K.

stare

The state of my life was changing drastically during the writing of “stare,” uprooting my life to change what I had in front of me. We were in between phases, approaching everything rapidly and without much caution. Packing everything and leaving, the structure of the intro was always something that stuck in the back of my head, making countless renditions.

“Once things felt calm for a moment, I found the lyrics written years ago coming back to haunt in an oddly familiar way – the songs inspiration comes from the same feeling songs give you in the afterglow of a feeling.” – JC. Vargas

“I was falling in and out of myself and stuck between where I was and the unknown; everything was changing around me and the more I tried to control it the more out of reach it became. Feeling like my mind is filled with television static, I think the writing of ‘Stare’ helped me move through that feeling with more clarity. I wanted the ending to feel like everything was falling apart, but that it’s okay.” – Silvia K.

i want you

“i want you” is me at my most raw point. the song came out of me all at once like I had been too afraid to say it out loud until that point. Elliott Smith is my favorite musician and lyricist, and his music has always been a comfort for me; especially when I wrote this song. we manipulated my voice to create this hollow almost theremin-like effect underneath my fingerpicked guitar to soften the edges of the song. I wrote it four years ago now, but the feeling doesn’t feel so far from me and I don’t think it ever will.” – Silvia K.

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