B-Side Guys

Missouri’s willoh built “NOSTRINGS” around Daisy—a character she describes as “built from my worst impulses,” housing all the detachment and mistakes she refuses to acknowledge. The 19-year-old artist created this caricature to hide from herself, then watched as “that escape turned back on me,” which becomes the song’s real subject: what happens when you externalize your worst tendencies and they start asking questions you can’t answer.

The production opens with low-humming bass guitar before willoh’s sweltering vocals enter, delivering lines about emotional vacancy with disturbing matter-of-factness. She catalogs the relationship’s emptiness directly—doesn’t want to hear problems, origins, destinations, just wants physical transaction. The repeated “Do you hate me Daisy?” cuts through that detachment with sudden vulnerability, suggesting the persona can’t sustain complete emotional shutdown even when designed for exactly that purpose.

What makes this compelling beyond typical hookup-culture commentary is willoh’s self-awareness about the performance. When she admits “I really don’t care about anything / And it’s really scaring me,” the mask slips. She’s not celebrating detachment but documenting its hollowness, how numbness itself becomes frightening when you realize you’ve engineered your own emotional unavailability. That line “I only really like you when you’re face first in the mirror” suggests narcissism as survival mechanism—relating to people only as reflections, never as actual others.

The off-kilter production—what EARMILK calls “shifting, avant-garde sound” blending synth-pop with punk attitude—mirrors the psychological instability underneath. Self-produced in Springfield after upgrading from Garageband to LogicPro with McDonald’s wages, willoh’s crafting experimental indie electronic that refuses easy categorization. “NOSTRINGS” doesn’t resolve whether Daisy is separate character or just willoh talking to herself. Sometimes your worst impulses aren’t external—they’re just you, asking if you hate yourself yet.