Beabadoobee: Beatopia

If Beatopia the universe was a solitary creation, Beatopia the album is a far richer textual content, buoyed by a bevy of collaborators that assist flesh out Kristi’s world with demonic-sounding backing vocals (“10:36”), baroque orchestral prospers (“Ripples”), and towering guitar solos (“Speak”). The personnel listing reads like a freshman class of burgeoning British pop stars—Georgia Ellery of Jockstrap contributed string preparations, whereas TikTok drum’n’bass revivalist PinkPantheress provides elven harmonies to “Tinkerbell Is Overrated.” As on final 12 months’s Our Prolonged Play EP, Kristi companions with labelmates Matty Healy and George Daniel of the 1975, however right here their fingerprints are extra seen: “Beatopia Cultsong,” the spacious overture that opens the album, echoes the 1975’s signature self-titled opening motif. On Beatopia, their contributions broaden her sound whereas on the similar time making it much less particularly Bea: The Healy reduce “Photos of Us,” with its Midwest emo-tinged guitar noodling, is a placing stylistic departure that feels a bit out of step, as if Kristi is doing her finest 1975 impersonation. However the sentimental and sleepy nearer “You’re Right here That’s the Factor” is an ideal match for her lithe voice, even when the smarmy sensuality of a line like “When the lights go down don’t say I didn’t warn ya/I don’t suppose that’s authorized within the state of California” feels quintessentially Healy.

Kristi’s most prolific partnership is along with her guitarist, Jacob Bugden, who co-wrote virtually each music on Beatopia. You possibly can hear their dynamic develop in actual time on “Don’t Get the Deal,” with Bugden’s decrease register serving as an ideal foil to Kristi’s featherlight vocals. As their voices meld right into a harmonic duet and a “Maps”-inspired guitar solo crashes in, the Beatopia universe comes into focus: heavy and light-weight, dense and playful, melodic and dissonant, all on the similar time.

Beabadoobee is well-suited to imaginary worlds: Her lyrics are sometimes extra type than perform, her phrases merely vessels for sounds. “I discover phrases that don’t actually make sense however match completely with the melody or simply really feel good to say,” she has mentioned of her writing course of. Untethered from the everyday constraints of grammar and diction, Beatopia finds its personal dreamlike logic. “Is it me/Or not too long ago/Time is transferring slowly?” she and a refrain of pals and musicians repeat, entranced, on her titular “Cultsong.” Attempt to decipher the verbiage—shouldn’t it’s “time has been transferring slowly”?—and also you’ll miss the purpose fully, simply as her classmates and trainer did 15 years in the past. However let the sentences move as simply one other instrument, as one thing good to say and good to listen to, and also you may get a glimpse at Beatopia.