Indigo De Souza sings with the spirit of a child who has not yet learned to lie. Her lyrics abound with cosmic self-awareness. Precipice, released via Loma Vista Records, is De Souza’s fourth studio album since 2018. If I could predict the future, I might envision Indigo de Souza’s fans shaking their heads at Precipice. They may run to online message boards to voice their resentment of its new buoyant pop sound – much like the fans of Sharon Van Etten, who constantly bemoan any hint of a musical evolution. Yet fans of Indigo De Souza (like Sharon Van Etten) love her artistry for her lyrics, which remain a constant extraction of her deepest feelings. Only this time, De Souza shares her same vibrant, albeit somber, inner world over a new pop-inflected production background.
1. Be My Love
Children play audibly as a mother (who’s matronly raspiness sounds a bit like Rossie O’Donnel) yells something sweet like, “Come inside now,” over the sound of crickets in a dry suburban field. Their voices crackle like a forgotten lawn sprinkler while Indigo de Souza, in her voice that shines like the sun on a field of green, sings: “Be my love/ Tell me you won’t stop/ At anything.” The sound is familiar, in that we can all relate to that kind of summer ennui, the place where boredom begets imagination which then becomes magic. This opening song is a cinematic experience evocative of a Céline Sciamma film, an extended rumination on a single moment.
2. Crying Over Nothing
In ‘Crying Over Nothing’, first released as a single, a drum machine and synth serve a Hippie Sabotage crunch over the words, “I’m crying again/ Crying over nothing.” This is a pop song, certainly. The combination of catchy beats and self-deprecating lyrics will infatuate all pop music fans. About Precipice, De Souza said, “I wanted to make music that could fill your heart with euphoria while you dance along.” She must have been imagining the Charlie Brown Christmas dance, for the goofiest dance goes best with ‘Crying Over Nothing’.
3. Crush
Indigo De Souza’s lyrics have a sneaky tendency to induce a blush! ‘Crush’ is one long blush. The song’s subject: how to explain to a new lover how to pleasure you, or as the kids say, how to eat you out. It is possible to miss this theme because of the song’s pop tunes, but once awareness strikes, it is hard to ignore those boudoir flavors. “Come up to get some air…/ I missed you when you were down there,” De Souza sings before the chorus: “You’re doing it fine/ I’ll tell you when I get there.” Synth pop tunes and sentimental vocal runs give the song a sense of tangy subversion to make any listener blush, and maybe panic, in a nice way.
4. Not Afraid
‘Not Afraid’ exudes De Souza’s shift towards pop music, but she remains true to the themes that permeated her previous work. “I’m not afraid of dying/ I’m not afraid of living either,” she sings in the chorus. On her previous album All This Will End released in 2023 she sang, “I want to be a redwood tree/ Feel desert sand below my feet.” To explain this lyric, on her NPR Tiny Desk performance she said: “I think that when I die I want to be composted, and become soil, and for that soil to be used to plant a tree.” This thematic throughline proves De Souza at her core seeps through this different production’s fierce upbeatness.
5. Be Like the Water
De Souza extends credit for her new found pop sound to LA based composer and producer Elliott Kozel. His work with wildly successful artists like SZA and FINNEAS compounds radio popular sounds with De Souza’s intense emotional excavation. The lyric, “Be Like The Water/ Go where you’re going/ I won’t be sorry/ I won’t be silent,” is a mantra I have already been repeating, and perhaps nods to De Souza’s musical evolution.
6. Heartthrob
Under the electric tunes of ‘Heartthrob’ De Souza rebukes child abuse. The song performs from a child’s perspective (“God, when I grow up/ I wanna have a full cup/ A true heartthrob”) to the effect of healing an inner child. De Souza’s voice sounds forced, pushed out and tired, slightly apathetic, in a way that mocks the heartthrob cliché. As she chants the chorus “I really put my back into it,” you can almost hear her scoff. The haunting line, “He really tricked me/ I let him touch me where he wanted,” recalls a moment in Vladmir Nobokov’s novel Lolita: Humbert Humbert lists his apparently extensive attractive qualities, which, to him quantifies his heartthrob status, to the point of justifying his abuse of Lolita. This is the power of pop music, people! It sends subliminal messages submerged beneath powerful guitar riffs.
7. Dinner
‘Dinner’, the shortest song on the album, is more of a snack than a meal, but everybody loves snacks. Long live girl dinner. Such and such. The sonic waves of the synth expand like the senseless expanse of a suburban parking lot where, I gather, De Souza spends lots of time. Parking lots recur in her lyrical repertoire, i.e ‘Parking Lot’ and ‘The Water’ via All of This Will End.
8. Clean It Up
Indigo De Souza’s music revolves around the depressive without dwelling on the downtrodden. Her musical accompaniment uplifts the tears that may splash on a stage monitor. There are moments in the album like ‘Clean It Up’, where the pop overlays and autotune dominate De Souza’s lyrical prowess. But if Indigo is happy, then I can be happy too. This is where she wants her music to be.
9. Heartbreaker
The greatest part of being an artist is the power to express pain through art, to create from destruction, which is exactly what ‘Heartbreaker’ sought to do. De Souza flew to LA right after a relationship ended to churn out music through her heartbreak. Although De Souza sings, “I just can’t shake it,” the song marches forward as if she already has.
10. Pass It By
A cacophony of sound, a jangly sound that oozes 80s dance beats, opens ‘Pass It By’. The song rings with happiness and genuine fun, but, like the title suggests, the song passes by quite quickly. “I know I’m just passing by/ Day into night/ All of my life” confirms that De Souza finds comfort in human transience.
11. Precipice
‘Precipice’ walks to the edge and pauses to look at the view. Her voice retains purity and wonder that seems untouched by the heartbreak and trauma about which she sings: “I feel constantly on the precipice of something horrible, or something beautiful – something that will change my life for better or for worse,” De Souza explained. Strange playback and vocal reverb elevates the song to a point, then drops us off with a delightfully ambiguous end. This choice, to jump or rise, perhaps belongs to the listener.
