Ground Control Touring

pink balloons is about disruption. But it’s also about Washington, DC, queerness, partying, money, violence, difference, irony, and religion. And also: fuck you.

The debut longplayer from Washington, DC-based Ekko Astral — Jael Holzman, Liam Hughes, and Miri Tyler — is a complex mesh of bubblegum noise punk and no-wave art rock that holds an elastic space for the knotty, tangled horrors of living in the imperial core. Their songs thrash with intense, necessary defiance against codified gender-based violence, their distortion and sibilance a direct response to the dangers outside our front doors. It’s blistering. It’s frightening. It’s Ekko fucking Astral.

pink balloons — produced and mixed Jeremy Snyder (DITZ, Lambrini Girls, Pure Adult) — was widely acclaimed, garnering fawning coverage from the likes of Pitchfork (#1 Rock Album of 2024), Stereogum, Washington Post, The Line of Best Fit and Paste Magazine, and won Ekko Astral year-end plaudits from NPR Music, Uproxx, FLOOD, and KCRW, where host Henry Rollins declared the album his favorite of the year. pink balloons was also recently nominated for “Best Punk Album” for the 2025 Libera Awards.

To commemorate the first anniversary of the album, Ekko Astral and Topshelf are releasing pink balloons: popped, a deluxe CD version featuring the original release’s 11 song tracklist along with five bonus tracks including “pomegranate tree” (originally released as a stand-alone single), ”shred empty blues (‘head empty blues: popped version’)”  by Mikie Mayo + Dreamrats,” “uwuwuwu (‘uwu type beat: popped version’)” by pet wife, ”unbrand (‘on brand: popped version’)” by They Hate Change, and a radio edit of “sticks & stones.”

Ekko Astral is touring heavily in 2025 in support of pink balloons with U.S. East Coast support dates with Bartees Strange in April and May, and a support run for PUP and Jeff Rosenstock in the fall. Ekko Astral has also joined forces with Gender Liberation Movement to present “Liberation Weekend,” a two-day music and arts festival taking place in the nation’s capital on Friday, May 30th, and Saturday, May 31st. Ekko Astral will also visit the UK and Europe for the first time this year, performing at Pitchfork Music Festival in London and Paris this November.

Ekko Astral was formed in 2021 and consists of best friends Holzman (vocals, bass), Hughes (guitar) and Tyler (drums; also co-leads the D.C. pop band Pretty Bitter)