2CHARM: WORLD BUILDING

MARCH 2026

Words by Vasili Papathanasopoulos

Photographs by Casey Garnsey

2charm’s origin story reads less like a calculated rollout, and more like a happy accident with staying power. On a rare day off in Los Angeles, the duo found themselves at fellow Australian artist Mallrat’s home alongside Ninajirachi, the ARIA-Award winning producer whose EDM-infused instincts would quietly shape the projects DNA. “We were all hanging out at Mallrat's house and decided that we should make some music with Nina, just for fun,” they recall. That session produced invisible wings, a track that felt, in their own words, “really epic” even in its infancy - that lightning strike moment drew them towards continuing down the path to 2charm. What followed wasn’t a strategic album campaign, but a slow-burning, borderless collaboration. Over the following months, the pair drifted between cities, stockpiling songs with no fixed agenda beyond the thrill of making them. The tracks were road-tested not in front of industry executives, but in living rooms, blasted at house parties and listened to exclusively by friends. “We would play them at parties and stuff and friends would always be like, 'can you please put on those demos?' Eventually we just had a whole album's worth of songs, and we thought maybe this should reach beyond these parties and it should actually be something that exists in the world.” Nearly a year on from that epiphany, 2charm’s debut album, star scum city, has arrived as the crystallisation of a scene, a friendship and a moment that refused to stay small.

The world of 2charm took shape intuitively, with the duo enlisting Ninajirachi, Simon Lam and 1tbsp across the albums production, yet resisting the urge to reverse-engineer a sound “We didn't necessarily have specific sonic references when we would start working on something,” they explain. “We'd kind of just start working on a song and then if we liked how it sounded, we'd like keep going and keep building it. So I feel like we weren't necessarily drawing from a specific reference at any point.” The pair note however, influence seeps in through osmosis. They point to Ninajirachi’s own lineage - “You can hear Nina's own influences in it, which are Porter Robinson and Skrillex.” - while noting that Ninajirachi, Lam and 1tbsp “have cited Calvin Harris as an influence.” Looming largest however is a more foundational pop spectre: Britney Spears. “I think that in terms of song structure and a lot of the melodies and rhythms and stuff - my favourite artist has always been Britney Spears. So I feel like writing in a sort of pop-electronic realm, I think that all of the Britney that is in my cells wake up and come out once I hear something that feels Britney adjacent.” It’s less a homage than it is instinct; a subconscious inheritance that pulses beneath the albums high-gloss chaos. “I think there's a bit of deadmau5 in there and some 90's, 2000's trance like Robert Miles. I guess that's kind of a bit of the Euro feeling part of it as well,” they conclude.

World building is paramount to 2charm, and it begins with crafting a sonic realm. Across star scum city, the pair aren’t simply chasing the club high - they are interrogating it. You will never be alone in barcelona captures that paradox best, suspending us in a humid, slow-motion haze before the beat snaps back in. That sense of emotional whiplash runs through invisible wings, a track that trembles on the edge of take off, its late-night shimmer masking a plea for closeness. Even prerogative, with its bright, open-air feel, frames heartbreak as a rite of passage rather than a wound, stretching personal fallout into widescreen ambition. Elsewhere, romance is rendered in bolder, more explosive strokes. chateau stands out as one of the most surprising to the duo, recalling “I think that maybe the most surprising one was when Ninajirachi and I made chateau and it kind of has a bit of a halftime trap drop. To me it is like Yung Lean meets Bieber and Skrillex collaborating. It has these pitch-shifted vocals that sound like haunting cheeky fairies or something [laughs]. It felt like this coming together of pop-EDM-Drain Gang and something really ethereal - which was just a crazy combination of sounds and feelings. I think that one is Nina's favourite on the album, and it's definitely up there for us.” The song plays like a memory you can’t quite trust, starting off delicate sonically before striking into something sweaty and impulsive, as if nostalgia itself has dropped into a basement rave.

That volatility makes the sugar-coated rush of girls feel deliberate: an ecstatic, almost defiant declaration that devotion can be loud, synthetic and proudly excessive. “I think boyfriend is the song that I'm most proud of,” says one half of the duo. “I feel like maybe the lead synth line is one of my favourite musical motifs in the album. I think it just kind of sums up the feeling of the album in that it sounds euphoric and epic, but it's also yearning and beautiful.”  boyfriend leans into flirtation with a wink, all elastic hooks and digital gloss, whilst paris (can’t get you out of my head) trades subtlety for atmosphere, bathed in heated yet hazy synths that linger like an endless European summer. “The second song that was made was paris (can’t get you out of my head),” 2charm note. I remember when Nina and I were working on that one, we were both just buzzing and we were like, 'what the hell?' That main piano line that is also the chorus melody - we were both just like, 'this is a timeless melody,' [laughs]. I just remember feeling so happy the whole time, and I was like, 'whoa, creating something can feel like this? Like, that's crazy.' Then that was sort of like the through line I think of like creating all of these songs with different producers or whatever. It was this feeling of like, 'whoa, this is like really fun and fulfilling.’” Overall, the album sketches a cityscape of feeling: infatuation as architecture, distance as dance floor, and youth as something too restless to ever sit still. 

If the sonics of star scum city feel transportive, its lyricism makes it clear exactly what 2charm are trying to leave behind and what they are running toward. Built on three pillars - youth, queer love and escapism - the album unfolds as a kind of utopian fever dream, a self-constructed metropolis where the structures of the outside world dissolve at the door. In this city, connection outranks conformity, and pleasure becomes a quiet act of resistance. “I think that to me, it's a feeling of escaping some of the heaviness that can come with the experience of growing up in a space that isn't necessarily ready to embrace that,” they explain. The album doesn’t ignore that heaviness; it metabolises it, converting repression into release. “I think like how good it can feel when you find yourself, like out of a space where you do feel kind of repressed, where you can kind of just be free and prioritise connection and fun and freedom.” That sense of liberation hums through every hook and synth swell. The euphoria is real, but so is the ache that precedes it - a duality that gives the album its emotional voyage. Crucially, 2charm resist diaristic specificity. Instead, they blur the edges of lived experience into something mythic, crafting a fantasy space expansive enough for anyone who has ever longed to be elsewhere. By framing their stories in flittering, pop-electronic escapism, they preserve their sincerity at the core of the songs whilst allowing listeners to project themselves into the narrative. The result is a project that feels both deeply personal and radically communal; a shared dream built from very real beginnings. 

The world of star scum city doesn’t end with the music; it is cemented in the visual identity 2charm have cultivated since day one. Footy shorts, sweat-slicked torsos, Y2K gloss and a self-described commitment to being “horny on main” form an aesthetic that is as tongue-in-cheek as it is pointed. Beneath the camp there’s critique - a playful but deliberate subversion of the hyper-masculinity they grew up around in Queensland. “It was kind of about embracing I guess where we have come from, which is growing up in Queensland. It might be a bit of a generalisation, but I feel like it's a pretty like hyper-masculine place to grow up [laughs]. Kind of putting that into our own world. Camping it up a bit. Reclaiming the NRL [laughs].” (For the record, their loyalty lies firmly with the Brisbane Broncos.) By exaggerating the DNA of ‘blokey’ Australiana with a queer lens, 2charm turn parody into power, reframing laddish iconography as something fluid, flirtatious and defiantly unserious. 

That ethos is sharpened in collaboration with Joel Thomas Wilson, who has helmed the fever-dream visuals for boyfriend, paris (to get you out of my head), invisible wings and girls. The clips lean gleefully into innuendo and high-gloss eroticism without ever tipping into self-parody. “They've all come together pretty last minute. He just seems to really get our vision and he's able to amplify it and take it to another level. He does horny but chic so well. I think working with Joel and getting to do a really epic run of music videos has been one of the most fun parts of 2Charm.” In many ways, the visuals operate as an extension of the albums thesis: liberation through exaggeration, freedom through fantasy. They render star scum city not just as a sonic escape, but a fully realised universe - one where desire is entirely self-owned. Still, even in a city without rules, there are limits - however loosely drawn. “There's a boundary we are yet to cross [laughs],” they admit when asked if an idea has not made it to the final cut. “We had a music video that we were planning where we were like [laughs], it was gonna be like a POV video and we were talking about us doing a cross stream or something [laughs] as one of the shots. But that one didn't make it across the line. So maybe, maybe for now that is where we draw the line.” It’s a telling confession: for all their provocation, 2charm understand that tension; the push-and-pull between suggestion and excess, is what keeps their world magnetic. 

That world is expanding in real time: three sold-out album launch shows across Australia’s East coast over the weekend, a North American run kicking off this week, followed by Europe and the UK in June. “It's a bit of a spectacle. It's musically awesome. The songs I think are really good, and the transitions between songs are like such a moment of their own. It's pretty funny [laughs], in moments and it's hot and horny and just fun. We take off layers of clothing [laughs]. One of our friends described it as almost like a cabaret or something. I see it as halfway between Addison Rae and Babymorocco, with a sprinkling of Confidence Man.” It’s a cocktail that mirrors the album itself: the shimmering pop instincts colliding with underground club chaos, delivered with a wink. There’s a certain symmetry in the way this ambition first revealed itself. Their debut single dropped the very day they stepped onstage, shrouded in mystery, to support Mallrat at The Tivoli, a performance rehearsed and choreographed in their apartment. “It was pretty epic coming onto stage, no one even really knowing who or what 2charm was. Then we had this whole show ready to go and people were kind of losing their minds and that felt really good. That's kind of been the reaction across the board.” In hindsight, that unveiling feels like the prototype for everything that followed - the thrill of surprise, the pleasure of excess, the power in owning the room before anyone has figured you out quite yet.

What’s striking is how consistent that response remains. “Kind of just at every show there's a point where people in the crowd are just shrieking [laughs] at what they're seeing. It is a spectacle, and we kind of go for it. I guess that's a through line with all of 2charm, we kind of just go all the way and we let fun be the light that guides it. Which makes for an entertaining show, I think.” In other words, the fantasy of star scum city doesn’t dissipate under stage lights - it intensifies. 

Zooming out, 2charm see star scum city not as an outlier, but as a part of a broader recalibration of electronic and pop music within Australia. When asked about the genres position locally, their answer is immediate and personal. “I feel like Ninajirachi's really opening it up, and it's incredible to have someone who is just such a visionary. Nina's well of what she can do is just so deep, and I think that we're in really good hands to have Nina kind of like leading the charge and opening up a whole new space and kind of rewiring the way that Australians hear and consume music. I've been a Nina fan for so many years now, but hearing the debut album just changed something in the way that I consume music I can't go a day without listening to it now. It's like a source of dopamine or something, listening to Nina, and I think you can already hear her influence in other music that's coming out and the way that people are producing their drops and stuff. The Nina impact is so real and so crazy and I think it's awesome to see people being inspired by such an exciting artist.” What’s striking is how they frame that influence; not as something to imitate, but as permission. Ninajirachi’s impact isn’t about replication, it’s about expansion. If she is “rewiring” how Australians consume music, then star scum city feels like one vivid result of that shift: a record unafraid of maximalism, of euphoric drops, of pop hooks sharpened for the club. Rather than orbiting her vision, they hope to add to its extension - proof that Australia’s electronic underground isn’t just thriving, but actively reshaping the country’s mainstream sonic image.

In the end, star scum city doesn’t ask for permission, it builds its own skyline. What began as a spontaneous studio session has grown into a fully realised universe: one with its own dress code, its own moral code, its own ecstatic logic. Across the record and its ever-expanding live incarnation, 2charm aren’t just making pop songs; they’re testing the limits of how playful, how queer, how excessive Australian pop can be - and how seriously joy itself can be taken. There is something quietly radical in that commitment to fun. In an era that often demands polish without personally, or irony without sincerity, 2charm offer both spectacle and softness, camp and craft. star scum city feels less like a debut and more like an arrival - not just as a musical act, but of a world sturdy enough for others to step inside. And as that world continues to grow, one thing feels certain: 2charm are not interested in shrinking it to fit anyone else’s expectations. 

MILKY EXCLUSIVE COVER STORY ©

Writer: Vasili Papathanasopoulos

Photography: Casey Garnsey

star scum city is out now.