Aevum (EP)

* QUICK NOTE TO SELF: Melanie's Open House interview where she talks about "23" being carved into the tree of her old house. I made this EP with a focus on the number 23 after realising that the EP length totalled 23:23. This is a massive coincidence that I'm very happy with.

## *Aevum*

* Standard cover
* Legacy standard cover
* Alternative standard cover
* Alternative legacy cover

## Singles from *Aevum*

1. "Mistakes"
Released: 29 September 2023

***Aevum*** is the fifth extended play (EP) by American singer-songwriter Melanie Martinez. It was released on October 1, 2023, through Atlantic Records. "Mistakes" was released as the lead single one day before the EP's release. Martinez stated this EP was "a tunnel through to the technicalties of music and creative expression". The EP does not officially serve as a continuation of her third studio album PORTALS, nor does it share a connection with previous EP's and it features scrapped songs from previous records. Martinez has made it explicit that "this EP does not have a connection to Cry Baby... it is a revitalisation of buried music from that time instead and should be treated as a separate project". The EP also has a "legacy" version featuring one scrapped song from her first projects.

## Background

Throughout the PORTALS North American tour, Martinez made several discreet hints at a new EP, similarly to her conspiration for the release of her fourth studio EP, After School, in which a scrapped K-12 deluxe album track "Fire Drill" was performed with a background screen depicting a notebook reading "After School" for a few shows. Canny in intent, the end of her last show in the United States on 12 July 2023 at The Armory in Minneapolis ended in the stage blacking out with the music-box-sounding intro of "Mistakes" playing, a song that was first leaked in low quality on 10 October 2020 then later on 21 June 2021 with a high quality version. Throughout the song, a video played on the screen depicting the credits of Martinez's second musical film "PORTALS", titled in conjuction with her third studio album. This was the first "release" of anything related to her second feature film. Originally, fans speculated that "Mistakes" would be released as a single to consolidate the end of Crybaby's trilogy and would serve as the actual end credits song for PORTALS, although Martinez debunked this claim in an Instagram comment reply, stating that "you'll be hearing a [PORTALS] deluxe song for the credits, not what you heard at the [end of the] mpls show :)", implying that one of three PORTALS (deluxe) tracks would be used as an end of credits song instead.

After the end of the PORTALS North American tour, Atlantic Studios accidentally leaked 2 promotional images as a result of an impersonation attack on 2 August 2023. The first leaked image was a blurry screenshot of a scrapped poster for the EP, which included promotional art and the tracklist. The second leaked image was a clear image of a scrapped thumbnail for the Mistakes music video which featured a cloud and a music box. These leaks did not include the name or release date for the EP. The leaks were quick to spread across social media with many fans expressing interest in the new found information. Martinez, or her team, did not comment on the leaks.

A brief hiatus ensued and on 11 September 2023, Martinez removed her profile picture from all of her social media and made three different posts that formed a cloud with a blue gradient backdrop on Instagram, Twitter and YouTube community posts, a posting time of a day apart. Each caption of each post formed part of one sentence. Instagram featured the first half: "a phase". Twitter featured the next: "of which all old". Finally, YouTube community posts: "is released".  The full sentence forms to be "a phase of which all old is released". Many theorised that this would be a dormant period for Martinez, in which old and leaked music were going to be released as a compilation album. This was believed until Warner Music Universal posted a black image with a caption reading "01000001 01100101 01110110 01110101 01101101" (Aevum in binary code) on 21 September 2023. It was unknown who this post was intended for as Martinez had not posted since 13 September 2023. Martinez and Warner followers alike, speculated that this may be Charli XCX's or Kyary Pamyu Pamyu's new releases, although this was debunked after Martinez posted the post on her Instagram stories two days after.

Two days later on 23 September 2023, Martinez officially announced the release date for her new EP, confirming the title through her social media bios which changed to "we transcend into aevum on 10/01/2023" (American formatting). She also posted a short video on her official YouTube channel titled "above the clouds ☀️" which featured the music box opening for "Mistakes" and a slow-paced fly in shot into white clouds. The description was "Aevum. The first of October." Martinez remained dormant for the next four days until she posted a story on Instagram with a countdown of 24 hours that read "mistakes <3", announcing the release of her EP single for 29 September 2023. **TBC**

## Personnel

#### Musicians

* Melanie Martinez - lead vocals, songwriter (all tracks)
* Robopop - songwriter, producer (track 1)
* Kinetics - songwriter, producer (track 2-songwriter)
* One Love - songwriter, producer (track 2)
* Quigley - songwriter (track 3)
* Josh Monroy - songwriter, producer (track 3)
* Michael Keenan - songwriter, producer (track 4 and 7)
* Blake Slatkin - songwriter, producer (track 5)

#### Technical

* Emboiled - mixing, processing (all tracks)

## Release history

**Release dates and formats for *Aevum***

## Notes

1. Martinez uses she/her and they/them pronouns. This article uses she/her pronouns for consistency.

## References

1. ↑ Martinez uses she/her and they/them pronouns. This article uses she/her pronouns for consistency.
2. ↑ add a note that says this was a no phone show
3. ↑ create a video of a crowd cheering at the intro of mistakes, make it muffled, difficult to make out, realistic, etc.
4. ↑ when this actually comes out, make edit this and change things up a little
5. ↑ make this reply
6. ↑ make these images
7. ↑ make this!!
8. ↑ make this too
9. ↑ and this needs to be made as well
10. ↑ make this
11. ↑ make this
12. ↑ make something for this or just keep a blank ref
13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 13.2 13.3 13.4 13.5 make something up, maybe inspect element pages and sc images?
14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 note saying that it's not avaliable in certain areas
15. ↑ link to download the ep and "fake buy" the standard stuff
16. ↑ link to download the ep and "fake buy" the Walmart stuff
17. ↑ link to download the ep and "fake buy" the Tesco stuff
18. ↑ link to download the ep and "fake buy" the Woolworths stuff
19. ↑ link to download the ep and "fake buy" the legacy stuff
20. ↑ limited avaliability note