The title of the newest EP by the Atlanta-based, Florida-raised artist Mixed Matches is my friends and family are what prevent me from killing myself, thank you, i love you. That’s a long title, but the music itself was made in a fairly short amount of time: two weeks. It’s the newest entry into a discography filled with left turns, from music indebted to the continuum of SoundCloud rap to blasted-out digital pop to the artist’s more recent releases, which double down on certain dream pop impulses latent on earlier records. It's the rare artist who can lay claim to both cloud rock and cloud rap, which makes for an exciting musical narrative—one still in flux, one still shifting with changes in the artist’s life and the broader winds of culture. We sent some questions over to Mixed Matches (real name: Ed Barrios). Give the article a read and listen to the newest EP below.

Tell us about your newest EP. Where does the title come from?

Mixed Matches: So the title of it is my friends and family are what prevent me from killing myself, thank you, i love you and it's the second in a series of EPs following this other one I made called a benevolent being has agreed to strike me down, thank god (long ass titles i know my b lol), and the title stems from a sense of brutal honesty but tinged with decent amount of humor I'd say haha. It's not meant to be taken too seriously or anything, but I am very grateful for my friends and family truly and both EPs follow this rough and raw guideline of expression where I make the songs really quick and whatever I express is whatever I get and I don't touch them too much after that. I think I made all of benevolent being in a week and this one I tried a little harder and gave myself two weeks instead.

Where was your head at when you were writing “this whole thing has been fucked”?

Most of the songs on the EP are actually somewhat tongue-in-cheek, but this one wasn't, and it was this past NYE (going into 2025) and was thinking of where my head was at last new years, like 2023 going into 2024 (I know the lyrics say NYE 2024, I honestly fucked that one up in all sincerity hahahha), and back then, I felt that I had gone through a really bad year in my personal life but also just creatively, like it felt like I was making and doing things at certain point because I was supposed to rather than because it felt right and I loved it. I felt that, in that retrospection, I had lost what it meant to be an artist or even a person, and while I was very glad to be far away from that place mentally, I still had to think about it. Sometimes I write about shit that happened way after the fact and it can be odd at times but it gives me a moment to gather my entire perspective.

It seems like one consistent in your discography is a sense of experimentation. What inspires you to try your hand at different styles? Is there a genre you haven't worked within but might want to in the  future?

I would say personal growth and maturing as person, there's a lot of things I've tried over the years, and while I’m happy I gave it a shot, I feel like a good amount of it is pretty juvenile now in all honesty, but its chill ‘cus it all leads up to something eventually and I feel like right now I’m making my favorite stuff and is the shit I wish I could've made when I started but didn't have the confidence for. Idk if there is a specific style or whatever that I'll gravitate towards next but if anything it'll just be a giant cluster fuck of shit ive tried hahahha. Maybe nylon guitars, I don’t know, music is awesome.

How do you approach vocal production? 

I like to take it as a case-by-case basis with every song, like sometimes I'll have them really upfront and not as effect-heavy, and other times they'll just blend into the beat damn near and I feel like that's how it should be hahaha, I think it should always be more about the song and the swag of it then actually trying to say something, after that's taken care of then I think you're actually saying something.

Could you tell us a bit about a blue room?

a blue room is a band i started with one of my best friends, Eli, and it came about from me and him living together and making hella beats all the time and having way too much other shit in common to the point where we were like, Why not just make the shit we've always fucked with into one thing. Since starting it, I've gotten my really good friends Bean and Jacklyn to join and it's my favorite thing ever. I see that MM is more of my personal pop project, whereas in abr I try really hard at making good songs and being ambitious or whatever you wanna call it, ‘cause it's not just me doing it, I believe in my friends a lot and wanna dp the absolute best i can by them.

You grew up in Florida, right? What was the music scene like when you were young?

Dude honestly where I grew up, which was around Clearwater, there wasn't much of a scene or at least I didn’t try to find it maybe? there was a lot of cool hardcore stuff and local rappers and etc., but I mostly just stayed my ass at home and online hahaha.

I read somewhere that you are a big fan of The Replacements. What is it about that band that speaks to you? What’s your favorite song?

I do love The Replacements and I think that beyond the music, I felt like a lot of their swag was being true to their roots and personalities, whether that included being as fried as fuck and very self sabotaging. They almost ruined themselves multiple times over the course of their career but I feel like when push came to shove the songs written spoke for themselves loud and clear and rode a really crazy line between sincere and stupid but fun. I think Paul Westerberg is an absolute genius fr. I'd say right now I love "Little Mascara" but usually it's something off of "Let It Be," that's one of my all time favorite albums.

Who was your biggest influence when you first started making music? What about right now?

When I first started it was a lot of classic shoegaze and modern dream pop stuff and then SoundCloud rap shit at the time. Like I was constantly playing stuff like MBV, Cocteau Twins, Diiv, Wild Nothing and etc., but I was also playing a lot of Duwap Kaine and shit as well hahahah. Clams Casino was also a big one for me too. As for right now, I'd just say the world I see and experience around me, like I live in Atlanta and its fried as shit but I love it and my daily life will bring out some sort of inspiration at some point, whether its being put on to a song or overhearing a conversation at the grocery store, Idk, i just take it a day at a time, I'm just happy to be here.