Is it full pop from Georgia?
There are a number of ways it can play out, but the generally understood truth is that where most artists are concerned, you never go full pop.
This doesn’t mean that the rules aren’t still sort of open to interpretation and that you can position yourself at right angles to it, or view pop through some sort of ironic filter, but otherwise surrendering those so-called principles is a risk most avoid.
With her 2020-released second album Seeking Thrills, Georgia came halfway towards the lighter world, but the landscape has changed so much since then. Lots of things which happened before that rough patch in time were the way they were it now seems more by luck than design.
The creative margins for error now seem narrower. The daughter of Leftfield’s Neil Barnes (check out their superb Glastonbury performance for some paternal context), Georgia’s career roots were in session drumming and, in going solo, her previous releases had been written entirely in her bedroom.
Feeling a need to change that dynamic, after collaborations with the likes of Mura Masa and Shygirl she struck up a friendship with former Vampire Weekend member Rostam Batmanglij. Such was the energy this new connection threw off she elected to share production duties for the first time with him.
Inevitably, recording in LA has also added new sensations: opener It’s Euphoric is made from bell-clear melodies, the slowly changing groove beginning simply as a bassline and some lyrical yearning before a piano bubbles up and Rostam’s bag of tricks gently take over.
Full of noise, lights and heat, Euphoric seems like it’s a rollercoaster which only goes up, but underneath this slightly cartoon world things are a little more complicated.
It’s an album Georgia has revealed comes with her in recovery and follows the death of a close friend, after which she took a decision to stop rationalizing events that no amount of thought could ever figure out.
As to be expected, this leads to some interesting parallels: Give It Up For Love’s sugary keys and rippling drum loops for example could be a plain backdrop for innocent desire but halfway through its face turns slightly with, ‘Now and then I get lost in dysphoria/I want your love /but I’m worried it’s too much for you’.
Syncing up with a nameless someone is also the idea behind Some Things You’ll Never Know but, as the words go, ‘It’s never that easy/I’m trapped in the walls of my anxiety’.
Both that and All Night owe a debt to 90’s house that would make any parent happy, the carefree vibes an exploitation of the 20th century’s fear-free hedonism that Confidence Man have come to own so effectively.
Back in the present however, the losing-your-shit solution isn’t always the right medicine: The Dream trades in floor-centric beats for downtempo insecurity of, ‘I don’t wanna make decisions based on fear’, a fantasy or mind game that refuses to fully show its true colours. Graceful closer So What meanwhile reveals the pragmatist, knocking back a double shot of resignation and optimism.
Euphoric proves that whatever you call the music – pop, or another label with less baggage – the life you live behind it is complicated and there are no easy choices for the past to remain the past.
Georgia has made a record that is less interested in the destination than the journey, but the unintended consequence is that its emotional hooks are way more engaging than any musical ones.
