watergh0st shot by Caroline Wallis.

Deep in the abyss of John Jay Hall, a star is born.

Just kidding, she was born in 1997.

However, her highly-anticipated EP, Blood Girl, was not. In fact, Blood Girl was birthed from the fiery womb of creativity just about one month after its creator, Rachel Roth, arrived on Columbia’s campus.

Rachel Roth, who performs under the name watergh0st, is a freshman at CC, intending on majoring in math.

When I first met Rachel, we were still in the passionate throes of NSOP, with all its white-tent-catering and glory. While I was struck by her rebellious and magnetic personality, it wasn’t until I randomly came across her account on a social media platform that I discovered her music and became hooked.

Roth has been singing and writing her own songs for years, but Blood Girl is the first EP she has produced since 2013. Roth not only slays all vocals on Blood Girl, but she is also responsible for writing, producing, guitar playing, and mixing each song.

I caught up with her today to ask her a few questions about Blood Girl.

When asked what her main inspirations were for the EP, she cited “the hectic stuff that was going on with my life” as well as a girl she “felt for” at the time.

She also explained, “I’ve been getting really hardcore into transcendental meditation and I think that has profoundly affected my writing too.” (Watch out, David Lynch, there’s a new genius/artist/transcendental meditator in town.)

watergh0st shot by Caroline Wallis.

Blood Girl is also a new journey for Rachel and watergh0st as well, departing from the jazzier rock of her older music and morphing into a modern, multidimensional sound.

I asked her about this change of style, to which she responded, “I also don’t really know how to describe my music. I feel like it’s silly to call it experimental, but it also is. I mean it’s a weird spacey soundscape that frequently uses harmonies and weird chord progressions.”

She continued to explain that “it may or may not be represented in the chord changes but sometimes my head is all over the place, and the lyrics are how I articulate those feelings and also try to ground the work.”

With so many different dimensions to her songs, one would expect the EP to have taken months, although this is not the case for her.

“I’m always writing, and writing a song for me takes like five minutes,” she says. “They’re literally just constantly pouring out of my subconscious and I just have to write them down. I just think in complete songs and I think them in a way that is vivid and multilayered, so the hardest part is just writing out all of the components and coming up with lyrics.”

Compared with her older work, she explains that “It was especially easier to write these songs too because now I’m at a point where I don’t really care what other people think of my writing. I used to care so much and I think you can tell if you look at my earlier works.”

Just today I found out that Rachel’s favorite movie is Begotten, an experimental horror film about the suicide of God and the death of Earth.

The movie, which I had seen a few years ago, left a profound impact on me, so I couldn’t help but ask her if “Gaia Alive” and “Gaia Post-Death,” (the opening and closing songs on the EP), were inspired by Begotten.

She responded, “Maybe. Maybe not. You never know.”

I felt this cryptic response accurately sums up watergh0st’s music: mysterious, curious, layered.

Blood Girl is just the tip of the iceberg for watergh0st, but since the ice caps are melting anyways, it won’t be long until she is the token of admiration for many.

Listen to Blood Girl here!

All photos courtesy of Caroline Wallis.