Melbourne, AU · punk · alt-rap · punk-rap

Ecca Vandal

2 upcoming festivals ↓

Genre-smashing Melbourne punk-rap — riffs, bars, and zero regard for lanes, delivered with a hardcore band's physicality.

Ecca Vandal was born in Louis Trichardt, South Africa, to Sri Lankan Tamil refugee parents, who moved the family to Melbourne while she was still a child. She grew up on gospel music before discovering soul, hip-hop and '90s R&B through her sister's record collection, and later studied jazz at the Victorian College of the Arts.

Early singles such as "White Flag" (2014) and the EP End of Time (2016) preceded her self-titled debut album in 2017, which combines punk and hardcore guitar with rapped and sung vocals, electronic production and hip-hop elements. The album's "Price of Living" featured Dennis Lyxzén of Refused and Jason Aalon Butler of Letlive.

Her live performances lean on the physical side of that mix, with a full band behind her and a delivery closer to hardcore fronting than pop singing. She has recorded with Sampa the Great on "Your Orbit," with Birdz on "Place of Dreams," and with Hilltop Hoods, appearing on two tracks from their 2019 album The Great Expanse, one of which reached the ARIA singles chart.

She has also written and performed the theme song for the League of Legends champion Rell and appeared on Void of Vision's reworked version of their single "Decay."

A 2024 single, "Bleed But Never Die," led into her second album, Looking for People to Unfollow, released in 2026, continuing her habit of moving between styles within a single song rather than across separate ones.

Read more

punkalt-rappunk-rap