Ahead of his March 27th release, “getting up to no good,” I wanted to revisit LOVERCORE, which was released just 5 months ago and went triple platinum in #my home.
September 28, 2026
My birthday is on September 30th, and even though Artemas released his best mixtape yet, LOVERCORE, on October 24th, 2025, Apple Music lists it as released on September 30th for whatever reason, so I claim it as his birthday gift to me. He released it within a month of my milestone birthday because he wanted to make my 25th even more special, anyway. I know because he told me that personally via telepathic communication.
If you know who Artemas is, there’s a good chance it’s because of his songs If You Think I’m Pretty and I Like the Way You Kiss Me, which went mega-viral in 2024. It’s how I discovered him, too, but the heaps upon heaps of bangers he has under his belt are insane – and if I could go back in time and give myself a big smooch for deciding to listen to the entirety of his discography after becoming obsessed with those first two tracks, I would.
His pretty mixtape is stacked front to back with dark-pop late-night anthems.
From shall we celebrate, which feels like confetti falling in slow motion in a cinematic movie scene set sometime after midnight, while things fall apart in the background.
And like an angel, which feels like a song someone who thinks they’re in love but is really just possessive would make.
To al pacino, which sees Artemas taking on the villain role that he so often does in his music (while delivering excellent, somewhat vulnerable vocals, at that).
Meanwhile, the Yustyna mixtape is loaded with obsessive, hypnotic, dangerously addictive tracks.
Like slow dance, the gritty, headbang-inducing, innuendo-filled yet directly filthy gem that blends romantic language with overt physical desire and disguises explicit implications under the softness of the title phrase.
And you’re simply wonderful, the intense, almost animalistic track that quickly descends from devotion into something much more darkly possessive.
In between mixtapes, Artemas keeps his fans fed with singles – some of which differ significantly from his often menacingly possessive sound.
Such as Can’t Stop Loving You, one of his more emotionally exposed songs – one that feels like standing on a railway platform on a dark night with a train whizzing past and causing your hair to whip you in the face violently.
And I’ll Make You Miss Me, a slow-build-before-climax track that feels like a hopeful yet ultimately unsuccessful plea to win someone back rather than a later-successful promise to actually do it.
(Every time I listen to the the emotional peak near the end of it, I picture a man trying to woo a woman with a grand gesture – like fireworks that spell out her name – standing there with a slipping smile as the last of the fireworks disappear and she walks away from him for the final time.)
Perhaps the most impressive thing about Artemas’s music is the fact that, despite releasing what feels like 150 songs a year, nobody who’s listened to them is complaining.
(He has yet to drop a bad one.)
And instead – with a discography filled with masterpieces like these – we’re always excited to see what Artemas is going to release next.
So, when LOVERCORE came out, I was ecstatic.
It’s his fourth mixtape, and it sounds like it. The growth is immediately noticeable, not just in the appreciable improvement in production quality and confidence, but also in a clearer-than-ever aesthetic and vision.
The fourteen tracks of this mixtape feel connected; the mood is more intentional. The entire project feels like an era rather than a collection of songs – and it’s not that his other projects lacked a cohesive direction, but this one definitely has the tightest coherence of them all. Where earlier projects experimented, LOVERCORE commits – And the vulnerability Artemas displayed throughout his previous work is still present, but now more refined. It really feels like instead of experimenting with his sound, this time, he’s owning it.
(And I wrote that prior to reading his interview with Bex Whitley for 1883 magazine, which is proof that his mission for this project was completed successfully, as he told her, “I woke up in the middle of the night after the tour, and I couldn’t go to sleep. I just had this concept for Lovercore, and I needed to get these super-new-wave synth-pop songs out of my system. Otherwise, I wasn’t going to be able to move forward with my discography. I wanted to prove to myself and my audience that I can make a cohesive body of work, because everything I put out before this had been very much like, “oh shit, this is blowing up, I need to get this song out, I need to get a project out very fast.” I handed this project in three months before it came out. Usually, I upload the song the day before, and it comes out.”)
The result of his determination to put out an intentionally curated body of work is a darkwave, synth-forward, occasionally retro sound that lingers throughout the alt/indie mixtape. The almost 80s-inspired atmosphere that runs through the goth-influenced, nocturnal-feeling tracks makes the project feel sleek, eerie, neon-lit, and cinematic from start to finish.
I listen in pictures – scenes play inside my mind automatically, every time I press play on any song. With this project, I see a whole lot of pretty vampires creeping around at night in blue-lit streets, bright red club scenes, and b&w vignettes.
Want to keep reading? You can find this post on Substack!
