{"id":154895,"date":"2025-11-26T16:15:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-26T16:15:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/154895\/"},"modified":"2025-11-26T16:15:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-26T16:15:09","slug":"sex-masks-new-ep-body-broker-is-here-its-a-diss-album-to-my-dad-and-everyone-whos-wronged-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/154895\/","title":{"rendered":"Sex Mask’s new EP ‘Body Broker’ is here: “It’s a diss album to my dad and everyone who’s wronged me”"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Sex<\/p>\n

Sex Mask are having sangrias in a \u201cshitty airport bar\u201d right now, which feels like the correct setting for a band whose whole thing is part feral charisma, part laser-cut focus. The Melbourne trio \u2013 vocalist\/lyricist Wry Gray, drummer\/producer Vicente \u201cVinnie\u201d Moncada, and guitarist\/synth player Kaya Martin \u2013 are on a UK\/EU run supporting Radio Free Alice, and they\u2019ve timed it perfectly: today they release their new EP \u2018Body Broker\u2019, along with a final pre-EP cut, \u2018Curse\u2019.<\/p>\n

Even if you\u2019ve only just clocked their name in the last six months, Sex Mask have been moving fast. The early singles \u2018TV Movie\u2019, \u2018Cold\u2019 and \u2018Blisters\u2019 have done the kind of numbers and word-of-mouth rounds reserved for acts who sound like they\u2019re headed for bigger rooms, and their live show has already put them on bills with everyone from Fat White Family to Big Special, plus festival stops at Dot To Dot, The Great Escape, and SXSW Australia.<\/p>\n

Still, they\u2019re getting their heads around the speed of it all. \u201cHonestly, any time anyone comes to a show, I am still surprised,\u201d Kaya says.<\/p>\n

\"Sex<\/p>\n

That mix of disbelief and swagger sits right at the centre of Sex Mask\u2019s appeal. They\u2019re not the kind of band who arrive with a neatly laminated lore. Instead, they talk like people who\u2019ve just stumbled out of a house party, said something that makes you snort-laugh, and then accidentally revealed something raw and true in the same breath.<\/p>\n

Ask them to introduce themselves, and you get a portrait that\u2019s half comic strip, half mission statement. \u201cVinnie, he\u2019s the gadget guy. He deals with intel, security, etc. Wry is the shaman. He operates mostly in unconsciousness. Kaya is the Canadian oil magnate. Strictly business,\u201d Wry says.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s obviously a bit, but it also tells you what you need to know: Sex Mask are a self-contained unit with distinct energies, and they\u2019ve figured out how to let those energies collide in a way that\u2019s funny, volatile, and held together by trust.<\/p>\n

Their routes into music are different enough to make the band feel like a real convergence, not a scene-assembly. Wry describes a kind of unavoidable pull. \u201cEver since I was a little boy, I just knew. I said I\u2019m gonna grow up and yell at people for a living.\u201d<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a competitive streak in there too: growing up around guitar-playing brothers, he decided he\u2019d do it and do it better, \u201cbut in a slightly more wholesome way than that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vinnie\u2019s background is vivid in a different direction. His parents blasted \u201creally sick music\u201d around the house, \u201cpumping fucking Prodigy CDs when I was really little,\u201d plus the Matrix soundtrack for good measure. If Sex Mask\u2019s songs can sound like they\u2019re built for some late-night, neon-lit chase sequence, that childhood input tracks.<\/p>\n

Kaya grew up in Canada writing \u201cbedroom poppy stuff,\u201d going to basement shows in high school because there wasn\u2019t much else happening in a small city. Then she moved to Melbourne, met Wry and Vinnie at a party, and essentially lied her way into the band. \u201cI met these guys at a party and lied to them that I could play any instrument, so they let me in the band.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Sex<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m just a bit of a fucking clickster. I wake up, I look in the mirror, I start clicking\u201d<\/p>\n

Melbourne turned out to be a useful melting pot for the three backgrounds. Wry came in with \u201cmore Soundcloud rap,\u201d Vinnie from \u201ca more punky hardcore scene,\u201d and Kaya into both. \u201cIt worked out pretty good,\u201d he adds with the understatement of someone who knows he got away with something.<\/p>\n

That cross-pollination is also how they locate themselves in Melbourne now. Kaya describes a city without a single lane: big techno currents, big guitar-band currents, and a set of newer acts who bridge the two, like NPCEDE and Dumbhead. \u201cI see us as more in that vein,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Sex Mask don\u2019t feel like a band who belong to a micro-genre so much as one who\u2019ve welded multiple instincts together until they spark.<\/p>\n

Wry\u2019s relationship with \u201cscene\u201d is more complicated. \u201cBeyond Melbourne even, I feel like I\u2019ve never really been in a community. I\u2019m a solitary individual and a self-isolating person,\u201d he admits.<\/p>\n

But touring is changing that. \u201cNow we\u2019re meeting all these people, and they\u2019re welcoming us in. This is probably the only time it\u2019s ever really felt like that.\u201d The admission lands hard because it comes right next to the humour. It also helps explain why the live show feels so urgent: it\u2019s not just performance, it\u2019s connection being built in public.<\/p>\n

So what\u2019s making this band connect so quickly? Wry\u2019s answer is purely Wry. \u201cIt\u2019s just our clicky nature. I\u2019m just a bit of a fucking clickster. I wake up, I look in the mirror, I start clicking.\u201d<\/p>\n

If you\u2019ve heard a Sex Mask hook that sounds like it was engineered to snap your neck towards the stage, you can kind of hear what he means. There\u2019s a physicality to their songs: industrial churn, no-wave abrasion, absurdist punk angles, but always with a groove that drags you in before you realise you\u2019re already inside it.<\/p>\n

The attention has followed that same pull, with people latching on quickly to the band\u2019s blend of menace, humour, and heart. But success, to them, still looks like something grounded. \u201cTo me, success is having a few beers with my boys. And that\u2019s one thing that\u2019ll never change,\u201d Kaya says.<\/p>\n

Wry wants a stranger-level intimacy: \u201cI want to be on a first-name basis with strangers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vinnie\u2019s ambition is refreshingly practical: \u201cI want to get more free shit.\u201d Put it together, and you get a band who care about each other, crave a real audience bond, and still enjoy the ridiculous perks.<\/p>\n

\u2018Body Broker\u2019 arrives as the moment Sex Mask properly widen the frame. It follows their first EP\u2019s more explosive energy, but the band are clear that this one comes from a different internal weather system. \u201cWe\u2019ve done the crazy shit, we\u2019ve got that out of the way, so this one\u2019s a bit more introspective,\u201d Vinnie explains.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe first EP was more reactive, and this one\u2019s a bit more reflective. The first one\u2019s like punching a hole through a wall, and this one\u2019s like \u2018Ah damn, I just punched a hole through this wall.’\u201d<\/p>\n

Wry puts it more bluntly, with the kind of gallows-poet clarity that threads through a lot of his writing. \u201cIt came from the bottom of my nasty little heart, and it\u2019s a diss album to my dad and everyone who\u2019s wronged me.\u201d<\/p>\n

That explains the EP\u2019s emotional temperature. Even when the riffs lock in and the drums drive like a motor, there\u2019s an aftertaste of reckoning.<\/p>\n

\u2018Cold\u2019 introduced that sharper focus, and \u2018Blisters\u2019 pushed it into warmer, more wistful territory, especially with Noah Learmonth from Radio Free Alice adding vocals into the song\u2019s swell and break.<\/p>\n

Then \u2018Curse\u2019 lands as a final statement before the full EP drop: reverb-soaked, groove-heavy, a muscular rhythm section under labyrinthine riffs that burst into a chorus where Wry and Kaya\u2019s voices tear past each other.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the sound of a band tightening the bolts on what they already do best, without losing any danger.<\/p>\n

They don\u2019t only draw from music, either. Wry says \u201cyes\u201d when asked about non-musical influences, then name-checks Lloyd deMause\u2019s \u2018The History of Childhood\u2019. \u201cI found it very upsetting, and in order to disassociate, I made music.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vinnie adds Fast and Furious to the canon. Wry counters with Pirates of the Caribbean: The Black Pearl, specifically \u201cThe Deppster\u2019s performance.\u201d Somewhere between trauma literature and blockbuster sprawl, you get the band\u2019s aesthetic: high-contrast feelings, speed, and a willingness to be a bit unhinged about it.<\/p>\n

Offstage, they\u2019re equally full-spectrum. Wry lists fun as \u201cdine and dash, 3-4 litres of nitrous, and the love of another.\u201d Kaya\u2019s into birdwatching, using an app on tour to scan and log what she sees. Vinnie builds cardboard forts for his daughter. The three activities paint a ridiculous but pretty tender triangle: mischief, attention, care.<\/p>\n

\"Sex<\/p>\n

\u201cIn 2026, fans will finally get a peek behind the Mask\u201d<\/p>\n

If 2025 has been their ignition year, 2026 is clearly being framed as the reveal. \u201cIn 2026, fans will finally get a peek behind the Mask,\u201d Kaya says.<\/p>\n

Wry follows with a single word that feels like a door opening: \u201cAlbum.\u201d They say it\u2019s basically ready.<\/p>\n

They\u2019re hoping for North America in spring, then back to the UK and Europe in summer. If the current tour is a victory lap for \u2018Body Broker\u2019, the next one sounds like a step into something bigger.<\/p>\n

Their predictions for the year are as you\u2019d expect from a band who treat sincerity and joke-making as one instrument. Kaya: \u201cYungblud is going to jail.\u201d Wry: \u201cBig shoes are back.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ask what they want first-time listeners to feel when they hit play in 2026, and Wry gives you a colour. \u201cTurquoise.\u201d Bright, strange, oceanic, a little spiritual. Like Sex Mask themselves.<\/p>\n

Right now, the band are on the road, EP out in the world, sold-out London show in the books and more rooms filling up behind it. They still sound a bit stunned that anyone\u2019s turning up, and also completely certain that what they\u2019re doing deserves the attention.<\/p>\n

That tension is exactly why they feel so alive. Is there anything else people should know? Wry pauses, then adds the last piece of mythology you didn\u2019t know you needed: \u201cWe do birthdays.\u201d Consider yourself warned, and invited.<\/p>\n

Sex Mask\u2019s EP\u2019 Body Broker\u2019 is out now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sex Mask are having sangrias in a \u201cshitty airport bar\u201d right now, which feels like the correct setting…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":154896,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[156,157,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-154895","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-music","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154895","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=154895"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154895\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/154896"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=154895"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=154895"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=154895"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}