Electroclash band ear released their new single, “Ne Plus Ultra,” on May 8. The band consists of Yaelle Avan and Jonah Paz. The track is their first release since their album, “The Most Dear and the Future,” which came out on Sept. 3, 2025.
They met at Bard College in 2024, and decided to join forces after collaborating at an open-mic set. Regarding the band’s name, it comes from the bodily structure that people listen to music with, and is also the name of a song from rock band His Name Is Alive, albeit “the worst song on the album,” according to Paz. Their first release was “Nerves,” recorded on Avan’s iPhone while they were still both students at Bard.
The duo has a bit of a location gap as Paz is finishing college in New York, while Avan is now based in London. The distance between them presents challenges when it comes to creating music together. At times, they have used gig bookings to sponsor their reunion, allowing them to actually write together.
“Ne plus ultra” is a Latin phrase that means nothing further beyond, or the highest point that something can attain. The song starts like much of their past work, with a sense of gentle trepidation. Avan’s voice is barely a whisper, and it is slightly accompanied by Paz, who also sings softly. The sounds interspersed throughout their background are reminiscent of machinery like cogs and wheels, and there is a glitchy, electronic buzzy beat drop that is also present in songs like “Nerves.” The sound’s buzzy bass effectively amps up the intensity of the song while creating a backbone that marries all of the patchwork elements of the song together.
Later in the song, things quiet down again, with Paz’s voice taking the lead on vocals for a moment. There are unexpected elements, like cat sound effects. The song has an emotional tone and ends dramatically, with the melody falling behind as the predominant buzzing sound goes on.
It is interesting how their soft-spoken singing contrasts with the more intense and bold sounds that are present within their music. Listening to ear’s songs makes for an interesting sonic experience in this way, with all of these contrasting elements catapulting listeners through tracks of perpetual subversion and surprise.
Their music contains a down-to-earth quality that effortlessly speaks to the peaks and divots of the human experience. What is astounding is how cohesive the finished songs are when Avan and Paz bring so many unexpected sounds into their music.
“A lot of our music is about tension, and I think tension doesn’t have a size because it’s this constantly outstretching thing,” Avan said to Nick DeMasi in an interview with No Bells. “So you can say that there’s tension here just because these two things are closer, but there could be just as much tension here in comparison to the size,” Avan explained as she demonstrated the physical distances with her hands.
“That’s more interesting to me because it’s not about the actual length but it’s that interior substance that’s pulling or contracting. It’s very organic in the way that it moves.”
“Ne Plus Ultra” is a joy to listen to, encouraging us to use our ears. ear’s fairly quick rise to stardom within the indie electronic community is understandable; they are two individuals with a particularly aligned artistic vision and sound. Fans can expect to hear more from ear, as they recently announced their second studio album “Rumspringa,” which is set to release on May 29.
Tessa Kang is an Arts & Entertainment Staff Writer. She can be reached at tokang@uci.edu.
Edited by Joshua Gonzales