Ekko Astral are disbanding “for the forseeable future.” “It’s time to end things,” the Washington, D.C. punks wrote in a statement posted to social media. “We are putting the band on indefinite hiatus to prioritize other musical projects.” The band says it will no longer release The Beltway Is Burning, the album they announced in February, “any time soon.” Read their statement in full below.
Two final Ekko Astral concerts are slated for August 22 in New York City and August 29 in Washington, D.C. According to the band, the shows “will span our entire catalogue, serve as a celebration send-off and will be the last events where we plan to play tracks from this discography for a very long time.” At the D.C. date, they’ll also raffle off the painting used as the cover for their 2024 debut LP, Pink Balloons, with all proceeds going to fund trans care at Whitman-Walker, a local LGBTQ+ community health clinic.
College friends Jae Holzman and Liam Hughes formed Ekko Astral in 2021. Over the next few years, they added drummer Miri Tyler, bassist Guinevere Tully, and rhythm guitarist Sam Elmore to the lineup. Shortly after Pink Balloons’ release on Topshelf Records, Tully left the band to focus on her solo project, Rosslyn Station, followed by Elmore just a few months later. Last year, Ekko Astral and the nonprofit organization Gender Liberation Movement launched the music and arts festival Liberation Weekend.
In February, Topshelf announced it was dropping Ekko Astral and ceasing all involvement with The Beltway Is Burning. While the label did not originally specify its reasoning, a representative subsequently confirmed to Pitchfork that the decision was related to a falling out between Holzman and Tyler, which culminated in Holzman filing a peace order petition against Tyler. At the time, Holzman held that The Beltway Is Burning would still come out.
By the following month, Ekko Astral had postponed the release of Beltway indefinitely and pulled out of the second iteration of Liberation Weekend. Holzman and Hughes also cancelled all of their upcoming performances except for a run of West Coast tour dates supporting Mclusky. At one of those shows, they recorded the live album Fuck This Band: Live at the Chapel, which would drop as a Bandcamp exclusive on April 22, Beltway’s originally slated release date.
“Ekko Astral rose up out of bedroom jams and basement shows to become a dream realized,” Holzman and Hughes wrote. “We’re eternally grateful to every single person who helped us along the way. None of this would have been possible without your help and we’re forever indebted to you.”
Revisit our review of Liberation Weekend, The Trans Punk DIY Music Festival That Could Spark a Movement, and see why we named Pink Balloons the best rock album of 2024.
Ekko Astral:
It’s time to end things. The final Ekko Astral shows for the foreseeable future will be a free outdoor performance on Aug. 22 in New York City and a finale gig on Aug. 27 in Washington D.C. with our friends Right Chipper and Berra.
These last shows will span our entire catalogue, serve as a celebration send-off and will be the last events where we plan to play tracks from this discography for a very long time.
We will also be raffling the painting from the pink balloons album cover at the DC9 show, and plan to donate all proceeds from the raffle to trans health services at Whitman-Walker.
