A Chat with DBsock (10.04.26)
DBsock’s latest release, ‘worse’, showcases how she isn’t afraid to sit in emotional complexity. Blending minimalist production with deeply personal storytelling, the track explores the quiet unravelling of a relationship shaped by self-doubt, manipulation, and hard-won clarity. We chat with DBsock, and she opens up about the experiences that inspired the song, her approach to translating complex emotions into sound, and how ‘worse’ marks a powerful step toward healing, and toward her upcoming release, ‘Empty’.
OSR: ‘worse’ feels incredibly introspective. What was the exact moment or feeling that sparked the song?
DBsock: I was once with a romantic partner who unconsciously “gaslighted” me – loving me and respecting me only when he was “not feeling low”, and questioning or ignoring me when he was struggling with some confidence issues himself. Yet because of his talent and the good moments that we had, I found myself trying to maintain this relationship when I should have stepped out. I was lowering my bars and compromising my own needs to a point that I felt worse and worse about myself. That was the moment that sparked this song.
OSR: You’ve described the track as existing in a space of awareness without escape. Can you expand on that idea?
DBsock: I believe that to deal with trauma, I need to allow my feelings to first flow through my body. Once I lived through all my big feelings, that is when I have accepted myself and moved on. This song was my therapy. It allowed me to sit in the past for a while. Rather than “living through the trauma over and over again”, I see it as a therapeutic reenactment where I could pet on my shoulder and tell myself that everything is going to be okay. I write my past into a script, knowing that this story will reach a bright ending. It felt so comforting.
OSR: How did you approach translating such a complex emotional state into something sonically minimal?
DBsock: I think it has something to do with my Chinese cultural background. Traditional Chinese poems show complex emotions with minimalistic phrases, as most love and desire hide between the lines. I prefer using wordplays and repetitions, rather than using the “exact words” to describe emotions. I also invite my own harmonies and other instruments to fill in the gaps. When every instrument plays a part to tell the story, a “minimalistic production” can hold dense messages. When I write, I like to think about what I was doing when I had the feeling I wanted to write about. Sometimes, the objects that seemed completely unrelated can become the key metaphor in my song. For example, in ‘worse’ I wrote “putting on the red shampoo again, thinking that I don’t give a damn, but it’s hurting me badly”. I have red hair, so I use red shampoo every time I wash my hair. But the imagery of the colour red, and water flushing out a pond of red, can strongly trigger the feeling of “hurt and being hurt”. That is probably why when I wash my hair, my memories started flashing in the first place.
OSR: The hook captures a kind of mental loop. Was that intentional from the start, or did it develop during writing?
DBsock: It was intentional from the start. I started this entire song with my hook, “I feel worse when I think about you, and I get worse, and I think about you”. Everything just grew from there.
OSR: You mention being aware of the manipulation while still staying. How important was it to portray that honesty?
DBsock: I have to admit, I have extreme standards of honesty. Most of the time, I cannot even tell white lies. On the bright side, if I cannot even be honest with myself, how can I be honest with my listeners? And if I am not honest, how can anyone believe in my music? I also think sharing my real feelings can build a sacred bond between me and my audience. It is almost like I am confessing to a trusted friend. This confession is so healing to me that it feels spiritual.
OSR: How does ‘worse’ differ from your previous releases in terms of both sound and storytelling?
DBsock: Compared to ‘worse’, my last single, ‘Maillard Reaction’, is a little similar in terms of the situationship it was describing, but my emotional status was completely different. In ‘Maillard Reaction’, I grasp the love so desperately that I could not move on. In ‘worse’, however, I was already observing myself from a third-person view, given the fact that I was completely out and away from this relationship. I think that is why the tone of this song is way stronger and self-assured. I became assertive in a good way.
OSR: Your music often leans into gender-neutral narratives. Why is that important to your artistry?
DBsock: I studied cultural psychology in college, and navigating gender roles in different cultures has always been a big challenge to me. One of my favourite bands, Floruitshow (now called DOUDOU), claimed that they want to be perceived as genderless, rather than three young women. I felt the exact same thing. While I always embrace my feminine sense of tenderness and intimacy in my songwriting, I cannot comply to certain gender roles in my culture. I do not believe that in music, feminism can ONLY be showcased with soft, high-pitched voices. It is more about how deep, complex, and sensitive we are about emotions, not the tone of our voices. Also, certain strengths and certain feelings are universal. I am just telling my story with my natural voice, that is it. Gender should not matter.
OSR: Can you talk about your collaboration with your producer and how they interpreted the emotional tone of the track?
DBsock: I worked with my trusted music partner and producer Khem L for this song. He is a really talented R&B producer and mixing engineer, and we have been working together for years. Asking him to produce for me gave me so much freedom to really sink into my emotions and think about how exactly I want to craft my lines. Collaborating with a good friend who knows me so well just made the session flow like magic. Khem told me that he felt really sad as we were finishing up this piece (he said the same thing when we were working on ‘Maillard Reaction’ too). I understand that he was being empathetic, but I told him that there is no need to worry. Just recognise how much certainty and power I am holding in my voice – everyone will understand that I am no longer struggling!
OSR: You’ve said you felt “at peace” rather than sad while making the song. What do you think that says about emotional processing?
DBsock: We cannot escape from the dark past, but we can add something better into our lives, so that we eventually grow out of the past. By writing and producing ‘worse’, I became strong enough to recognise the mistakes I had once made. I found peace because I know I would not walk into the same mistakes again. I knew I had shed into a better, stronger version of myself.
OSR: How does ‘worse’ set the tone for your upcoming release, ‘Empty’?
DBsock: ‘Empty’ talks about a soft and withheld emotional withdrawal. It is the moment when I thought I had moved on, but that sense of loss momentarily broke me again. In other words, it is my “post-worse stage”. It is also a poetic goodbye, and a light-hearted end note to my past. Stay tuned!
Many thanks to DBsock for speaking with us. Find out more about DBsock on her official website, Instagram, and Spotify.
