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CASI
CASI(Carpark)
Add date: 5.5.2026
Release date: 6.23.2026
Links:
Apple Music
Bandcamp
Carpark
Instagram
Spotify
Tidal
YouTube
Early in 2024, Eli Edwards left his Washington hometown to make it as a rock musician in Los Angeles. He’d hesitated to head south for Enumclaw, the romantic and ragged rock band he’d helped form, but his family convinced him it was a way out of Spanaway, the rainy airbase suburb at the country’s northwest corner. He made the move but flew home maybe a little too much. He was ostensibly visiting his girlfriend, but he spent most of his time with Xayvien Young, his best friend and collaborator since they were 11. They cut tracks in every bit of free time until they had an epiphany: Maybe this music they’d made together for a dozen years was actually special. Their 10-track, self-titled debut as the electrifying and anguished duo Casi is all the proof they needed.
These songs don’t ignore genre lines; they delight in destroying them, in finding ways to slam hip-hop and hardcore, emo and nü metal together until it seems illogical that they were ever apart. Take “Jumper,” where heavy metal guitars and face-kicking drums stir the moshpit for rabid verses about crushing ICE and the lessons you learn riding the poverty line. Take closer “Bridges,” where the melodic imprint of Deftones meets the relentless confessions of Death Grips. Here are the hard, funny, and loud stories of two 23-year-olds, screaming about the world over a breathless composite of all the music they’ve loved.
When Eli was in Los Angeles, Xay missed his friend. But in his absence, Xay also felt the spark of inspiration. Music had just been a childhood hobby, but now Eli was in a rock band that had press accolades and tours. Xay got more serious about the craft. Eli would write about the dislocation and isolation he felt in California, while Xay would document the hardships of being a young Black man with a complicated family as he worked jobs that offered little promise. “21, still rapping, got me feeling like an old man/Multimillion-dollar, Grammy-winning, that’s the whole plan,” goes the brilliantly named and high-speed headrush “I’m Hungover and Went to Church.” Casi is their vessel of shared ambition.
Xay and Eli are home now. Their connection, they agree, has never been stronger, their music never more candid. This isn’t a coming-of-age album for Casi; it is a raw and riveting snapshot of that process, painful as it can be. “Eleven87” is a breakup song, a soul beat springing beneath arching emo vocals. “Intrusive Thoughts” treats that topic like a punching bag, Eli and Xay fighting against the habits that keep them down. “I just wanna feel like I’m enough,” runs the chorus. “I just wanna feel like I’m on top.”
Photo Credit: Colin Matsui
Apple Music
Bandcamp
Carpark
Spotify
Tidal
YouTube
Early in 2024, Eli Edwards left his Washington hometown to make it as a rock musician in Los Angeles. He’d hesitated to head south for Enumclaw, the romantic and ragged rock band he’d helped form, but his family convinced him it was a way out of Spanaway, the rainy airbase suburb at the country’s northwest corner. He made the move but flew home maybe a little too much. He was ostensibly visiting his girlfriend, but he spent most of his time with Xayvien Young, his best friend and collaborator since they were 11. They cut tracks in every bit of free time until they had an epiphany: Maybe this music they’d made together for a dozen years was actually special. Their 10-track, self-titled debut as the electrifying and anguished duo Casi is all the proof they needed.
These songs don’t ignore genre lines; they delight in destroying them, in finding ways to slam hip-hop and hardcore, emo and nü metal together until it seems illogical that they were ever apart. Take “Jumper,” where heavy metal guitars and face-kicking drums stir the moshpit for rabid verses about crushing ICE and the lessons you learn riding the poverty line. Take closer “Bridges,” where the melodic imprint of Deftones meets the relentless confessions of Death Grips. Here are the hard, funny, and loud stories of two 23-year-olds, screaming about the world over a breathless composite of all the music they’ve loved.
When Eli was in Los Angeles, Xay missed his friend. But in his absence, Xay also felt the spark of inspiration. Music had just been a childhood hobby, but now Eli was in a rock band that had press accolades and tours. Xay got more serious about the craft. Eli would write about the dislocation and isolation he felt in California, while Xay would document the hardships of being a young Black man with a complicated family as he worked jobs that offered little promise. “21, still rapping, got me feeling like an old man/Multimillion-dollar, Grammy-winning, that’s the whole plan,” goes the brilliantly named and high-speed headrush “I’m Hungover and Went to Church.” Casi is their vessel of shared ambition.
Xay and Eli are home now. Their connection, they agree, has never been stronger, their music never more candid. This isn’t a coming-of-age album for Casi; it is a raw and riveting snapshot of that process, painful as it can be. “Eleven87” is a breakup song, a soul beat springing beneath arching emo vocals. “Intrusive Thoughts” treats that topic like a punching bag, Eli and Xay fighting against the habits that keep them down. “I just wanna feel like I’m enough,” runs the chorus. “I just wanna feel like I’m on top.”
Photo Credit: Colin Matsui