“Weltschmerz”, the title track, encapsulates the EP’s central theme of existential melancholy, swallowed by insignificance in the face of eternity. Xiaoqiao creates a ritualistic almost-sacred choir, using her voice as both a modern ancestral channel and a tool to unearth the deepest emotions. The song explores her surreal dreams and memories, capturing the disturbed yet vulnerable feelings of seeking oneself. Haunting and evocative, it layers Gregorian chant-inspired vocals over a droning harmonium, bridging the ancient and contemporary in a way that feels both timeless and transcendent. The music video, made by legendary photographer and director Erika Kamano, follows on from the story in Xiaoqiao’s debut video “Lethe”, capturing her shadow self lost in the river of oblivion, yearning and searching for unity with her other self.

Marking Xiaoqiao’s first solo release, Weltschmerz EP traverses a labyrinth of memory, longing, existential melancholy, and dreams. She writes from between the waking and dreaming realms, where time is both present and elusive, and mythology seeps into reality. The title draws from the concept of existential melancholy coined by German Romantic author Jean Paul in his 1827 novel Selina, which ruminates on the weariness of an existence where reality can never meet the expectations of the mind. This pervasive yearning for a more fantastical world weaves through Weltschmerz EP.  The tracks explore the unknown, what lingers beneath the surface in the hidden parts of the psyche and in forgotten memories.

The opening track, “Lethe”, is a lament that showcases Xiaoqiao’s heavenly vocals with celestial harp. Inspired by the Ancient Greek myth of the river Lethe, where souls drink to erase all their memories before reincarnation, Xiaoqiao explores what is left behind when memories dissolve, but echoes of the past still linger, like mist.

Xiaoqiao floats into “Magnolia Dream”, which reflects the Taoist classical story, Zhuang Zhou’s The Butterfly Dream, of one who dreams he is a butterfly, and upon waking up and coming back to himself, cannot decide whether he is a man who dreamt he was a butterfly or a butterfly who is now dreaming he's a man. “Magnolia Dream” holds onto the brief minute of pre-wakefulness, when dreams are tangible and reality delves into surrealism. Vocals float over fluid, watery harp, shimmering tones and soft percussion that mimic the fluttering of butterfly wings.

The EP closes with “Fleur De Sel”, a shimmering blend of omnichord, harp, and warping lap steel with airy, reverb-soaked vocals that float over the track like a delicate mist. Inspired by an old poem by Xiaoqiao, “Fleur De Sel” captures the melancholy of transformation, growing up, the memory of past selves and the dissolving of time.