Erika revisits her solo project with the Scars EP, a collection of five tracks cowritten with musical partner Homer Steinweiss. The EP highlights the pair’s ability to craft intimate pop music - a skill Erika has cultivated over many years, and that Homer has developed as a producer (Monika, Paul Spring, Diane Birch, Holy Hive) and drummer (The Dap-Kings, Mark Ronson, Amy Winehouse). The music is rich with layered vocals, keys, and percussion, effortlessly cohering to invoke a hypnotic calm.

Homer and Erika started working on the material for Scars during the summer of 2015, finding time to get together in the studio despite a number of twists in their lives. Together, they experimented with a korg polysix, an old synth that belonged to Homer’s father, that allowed them to create the woven staccato melodies that would become the backbone of the EP. The resulting confessional compositions are meticulously constructed and wrapped in a serene haze, creating a dreamlike atmosphere that’s warm and wistful.

Emotionally, the making of the EP chronicles Erika’s journey towards motherhood. “I had a consciousness of this huge transition hovering under the surface and coloring my thoughts and experiences at the time,” she explained. “so even if I wasn’t writing about it explicitly, the feeling is there.” As the title suggests, there’s something bittersweet at play across Scars; hardship might have passed, but the vestiges remain. “We wrote the track "Scars" around the time that I had an early miscarriage. The song came together so naturally at the piano, and the words just spilled out. They're so clearly addressing that experience of loss, but I don't think I realized it at the time. There was just a general intensity to life which hasn't slowed since having my son in November of 2016 — so trying to get a grip while hanging on to some of that hopefulness is part of the spirit of this song too.” The end result of the Scars EP is an exploration of Erika’s interior, as well as an invitation to join her there.