Alison Wonderland experiences ‘Ego Death’ on ‘GHOST WORLD’

Not all ghosts haunt you. Some stay to guide you. For Alison Wonderland, reconnecting with her past self meant sorting through which spirits still served her and which ones to exorcise.

Her latest album, GHOST WORLD, documents her soul search. Much of its tracklist conveys her inner monologue: “Lost & Found,” “Floating Away,” “Again? Fuck.” It’s rare for an electronic artist to speak with such vulnerability, but it’s likely why she shares such kinship with her audience.

“It’s so funny, a lot of people have told me they’re feeling the same way in their own lives,” Wonderland tells EDM.com. “I’ve felt this way since high school. Maybe I need to see my therapist more. I really, truly feel I don’t know where to fit in.”

She wrestled with some brutally honest questions while writing the album, including whether or not her career should continue at all. “Is This The End?” closes the project, and listening back is still difficult for her. The song became a conversation with herself about feeling replaceable, no longer “the shiny new thing,” and experiencing what she calls “an ego death.”

“I definitely struggled thinking if I can do this anymore…” Wonderland said. “I wasn’t feeling very encouraged, to be honest. But I kept going, and I’ll keep going. I’ll keep making music because I can’t imagine myself not doing it.”

“It was more about how much of myself I can give to it anymore, and what am I getting back? Sometimes when you’re emptying the cup, and it’s not refilling, it’s mentally and emotionally a lot.”

Wonderland’s best work comes from a transcendental place. It’s an almost hypnotic state where instruments plucked from her psyche color and shade a blank canvas. Reaching that heightened concentration became challenging with intrusive souls crowding those creative corners.

“I like to zone out and get in a flow state,” she said. “It was getting interrupted a lot in the past.”

Success complicates things. People are happy to let you experiment in peace when you’re unproven, but once a breakthrough like Run happens, the noise gets louder. Wonderland found herself spending more time filtering out opinions than following her instincts. It was those outside voices, the ones she didn’t respect, that made past albums feel like creative battles.

“Eventually, what I put out is what I wanted,” she said. “But it was a much more strenuous experience.”

GHOST WORLD became a medium for Wonderland to connect with the 29-year-old girl who made Run, before pressure, commentary and expectation took root. She made a pivotal discovery through this séance: how can imagination ignite when blowhards take up all the oxygen?

“When I was thinking of writing another album for Alison, I asked, ‘Who is she now? I feel really lost. I don’t feel like part of anything.’ I said, ‘f— it! Channel that. Have fun as you did with the Whyte Fang album. Shut out all the other voices.’ It felt really fresh again.”

“To be able to put out a body of work that means something and translates, it must come from a place where I’m really excited, and I truly mean. So many people have said that it’s reminiscent of Run. It’s the energy I had when I made Run… I think that’s a good thing.”

Her 2023 Whyte Fang project became the unlikely catalyst. Free from expectations tied to the Wonderland name, she rediscovered what it felt like to create without restraint. That freedom carried directly into GHOST WORLD, and exposed which “ghosts” in her artistic orbit should stay.

For GHOST WORLD, she removed every outside influence she could. “I A&R’ed the album myself and got the people I really thought understood me, and who I wanted to collaborate with, involved,” Wonderland explained.

Major labels aren’t exactly known for encouraging artistic risk, but Wonderland’s team insisted she chase whatever excited her. No metrics, no trend-chasing.

“It was the coolest thing they’ve said to me. It’s how I feel any artist should feel,” she gushed. “You can hear it in what I’ve been releasing. I feel fresh and free.”

Taking back control also forced her to confront a haunting truth: she often feels like a lonely soul adrift. It used to bother her. Now, she’s finding comfort in her own lane, building her own ecosystem instead of trying to fit into someone else’s.

“Sometimes I get really sad that I don’t have a clique or collective to big-up me in the scene,” Wonderland said. “I never felt like I had that.”

“I had to become more comfortable with that. In the past, I never knew where to fit in or how to define myself as an artist. I stopped thinking about it more with this album. I’m making my own album for it.”

When the weight of that solitude feels heavy, she’s reminded who really hears her: the fans.

“Even if one person comes up to me and understands the album, or they’ve listened to it properly, it makes me feel like I’ve reached someone,” Wonderland said.

Moments like her recent meet-and-greet made her feel seen in ways the industry never has, and reminded her why she’s “so grateful” for her fans.

“They need to know part of the reason I kept going and kept making this album and working through my own little ego death was because of them,” Wonderland said. “They believe in me.”

Life is a complex endeavor: constantly challenging, yet remarkably beautiful at each turn. Like Wonderland says, “Everything comes in waves.” So while her soul is sometimes restless, she’s often reminded of the warm, whimsical spirits floating alongside her. In GHOST WORLD, those waves carry her somewhere freer.

“Do I have more fuel in the tank? Yes,” she affirms. “So I would be stupid to stop putting myself out there.”

You can listen to GHOST WORLD below and find the new album on streaming platforms here.