The rhythm-and-creep maven continues his Before Anyone Else trilogy.

Awful Records talent GAHM just released In This Dark Room, the second in his Before Anyone Else trilogy. Like The House That GAHM Built before it, expect subterranean R&B full of half-remembered melodies and ethereal (not Ethereal) uneasiness. Over email, GAHM describes the EP’s narrative from the safe distance of the third person:

“The House That GAHM Built was full of denial and anger; it was GAHM’s first foray into the house of his own creation, his introduction to just how messed up he might be internally. In This Dark Room picks up six months after. GAHM has found himself locked in this dark room, where he experiences complete sensory deprivation and is forced to descend further into his psyche. He is visited by the fragmented personalities that he has abandoned over the course of his life, and forced to come to terms with the fact that this entire experience is largely self inflicted.”

While that narrative sticks to metaphor, the catharsis it represents is very real. “Creating music is self-therapy the only way I know how. I’ve never in my life found something that can bring me past a depressing point like creating an entire musical project about said depression,” he explains. “It’s like I’m capturing all the emotion inside a glass box where it can be observed safely, without the fear of it hurting you anymore.”

Along with the new EP, GAHM has unveiled the short film for The House That GAHM Built. As with the artwork on both EPs (by Awful collaborator Bootymath), he handed over the creative keys to someone else. “I wanted [Mike Ellwood] to go in whatever direction the music inspired him,” he says. “The fact that I was able to feature one of the real life inspirations for these musical pieces – Savanna Keo — made it all the more real.”