ALBUM REVIEW: Indigo De Souza – ‘Precipice’

For someone as lyrically heart-on-sleeve as Indigo De Souza, it’s incredible how disguisedly chameleonic her approach to music is. Like a true shapeshifter, saying she operates in the indie sphere does her a disservice, employing all kinds of folky tropes, huge pop choruses and even getting screamily close to grunge and ’90s alt-rock. And no matter what turns the North Carolina songwriter takes, the intentional efforts to differentiate each release come across as truly effortless.

The opposites-in-tandem effect feels particularly pronounced in Precipice, her fourth in a lineage of acclaimed full-lengths. Like its predecessors, there is actually the consistent thread (or looming) of death itself—tracks titled Kill Me, the beautifully trippy Day of the Dead skull artwork painted by her mother, De Souza’s own idea of how she’d be like to be decomposed in the augural setting of NPR’s Tiny Desk—but this record’s idea of plunging into the unknown (for the better, more than worse) sees the light far more vividly. Light, that is, punctuated through soaring melodies, synth stabs and a studio sound bursting out far enough to collapse the walls and let summer flood the recording sessions.

Worked on in conjunction with Elliott Kozel and while the artist grew to love the concrete jungle surroundings of LA (itself eventually seeing splendour when bathed in that Pacific sunshine), there’s danciness and pop-optimism aplenty. Single Crying Over Nothing is a skittery little zipper, picking up into a chorus that feels both at odds and completely complementary to De Souza’s balladic verse vocals. Not Afraid even doubles down on the death theme again (“I’m not afraid of dying anymore / I’m not afraid of living either”) and her more positive sentiment is accompanied by whiz-bang production trickery that adds all the vibrant colour of a Super Mario game. De Souza’s vocal range is, as ever, impressive; Be My Love’s echoing instrumentals are matched by wafting theremin-like vocals, where an “It’s not the end!” refrain ascends into the cosmos. Every single element is crunched into songs all under four minutes; truly a testament to the songwriter’s knack for all-filler brevity.

Even within these packed servings, there’s plenty of moments where the tracks’ starting points barely determine where they will end. Be Like The Water’s hushed beginnings grow to a loud thrum and back again through some sly hand claps, capped with plucky keyboard arpeggios bouncing with all the offbeat cartoonish flair of The Knife. The washy space of the instruments in the title track only let you partly hear uncanny drum rhythms that accompany crunchy guitar lines. The punky throttle of Heartthrob also strips back the gloss of De Souza’s “I really put my back into it!” phrase, it’s raw edge helping you feel her intent in every word. Its sister-song (by name at least) Heartbreaker is instead more in an alt-country lane with slides and a tempo befitting of a line dance, even.

As De Souza’s most polished outing stuffed to the brim with luscious production, there’s a lot more pep and upbeat charm in Precipice compared to earlier cuts. It does however sit amongst plenty of experiments with dream-pop, even extravagant art-pop, showing the artist can still retain her confessional style however she wishes to present it. It’s as much a ‘play it loud’ summer listen as it is an insular headphones-on experience––once again two opposing ideas that De Souza manages to do, all in one go.

For fans of: Mitski, Alex G, Mannequin Pussy

‘Precipice’ by Indigo De Souza is released on 25th July on Loma Vista Recordings.

Words by Elliot Burr