BUTCHIE Introduces Himself With Electro-Pop Single "Gaslight" From EVERPRESENCE

Music was constant in Waldman's childhood. His mother sang; his father played trombone and dreamed of becoming a jazz musician. Waldman gravitated toward '70s pop before immersing himself in experimental music, new wave and synth-pop. By high school, he was writing poetry and lyrics and performing at East Village and Lower East Side open mics, sometimes with a first-generation Casiotone. He also briefly appeared as a backup singer and dancer with Tina Benet and the Benetz at Boybar.

Design eventually became his primary career, though music never disappeared. While living in Tokyo from 1986 to 1990, Waldman wrote and recorded four songs with Soichi Terada, though the tapes are now lost. His later work included NOOKA, a fashion brand carried in museum shops around the world and once worn by Prince.

His return to songwriting began in 2024, while clearing out a New York City apartment as a relationship of more than 20 years was ending. Rediscovering old poetry and lyrics brought him back to work he had suppressed, and producer Peter Cattermoul of Teleman began developing material from that archive with him.

"Gaslight," from EVERPRESENCE, began in September 2025, just after Waldman signed the paperwork ending a 24-year relationship. What started as a personal response to being gaslit by someone he loved became a wider examination of blame-shifting, social control and political minutiae. The repeated "gaslight carousel" image captures the idea of motion without progress, while lines like "Global gaslight generation" and "Nostalgia's political masturbation" push the subject from intimate experience into public life. Cattermoul encouraged Waldman to treat the track as a single after he initially thought it was too strange for that role. Musically, BUTCHIE draws on '70s and '80s electronic music and disco, with hyperpop and electroclash also part of the frame.

Directed and CG-designed by Kota Kawamura, the video keeps BUTCHIE at its center as visual disruptions unfold around him, reflecting the chaos and stalled movement at the center of the song. Shot in real time in an LED-lined studio, it uses spinning graphics, shifting walls of imagery and neon-saturated scenes to keep the environment in motion around him. Moments of ironic dancing cut against the seriousness of the subject, reflecting BUTCHIE's view that gaslighting receives too little serious scrutiny in personal and public interactions.

BUTCHIE is now putting together a live show, recording 10 new songs for a 2027 album, and preparing a non-album cover of Sylvester's "Stars" for release in October. 2026.