Green catastrophises for the worst that might come with her new album. With expansive synths, characteristic lyrical writing and collaboration with sister Lucy Green, this dives deeper into her psyche.
We’ve got two Phoebes spiralling out in the music world now. Bridgers mourns the loss of her previous relationship, her father, and getting comfortable with the new one. Green pre-empts the sorrow and grief a bit early on her new one. We’re living in an era of musicians who, once again, are comfortable bearing it all and exude much more than their personalities on their tracks. These are inner thoughts out in the open, as you’d expect Gen Z to make music. Green is able to express these with the help of her sister Lucy Green, aka elucyve. This is the darker overcast before the storm, called PREMATURE NOSTALGIA.
Traversing this theme
Through the entire album the theme remains simple yet heartbreaking. Though she’s amidst a field of flowers, she feels morose for the autumn that is to come. It has been composed and recorded like all independent music initially has: at home. Phoebe Green shuttles between the flat in Manchester they share as sisters and their parents’ home on the Lancashire coast. Lucy’s collaboration means sharing a certain bond and understanding why those feelings exist and how they can be captured through the lyrics and the melody. They do a pretty great job at it – not just as another famous sibling duo in music, but as musicians understanding the intent behind the art.
If Phoebe Green’s previous EP, The Container, was about vulnerability, this dives one layer deeper into why she leans towards self-sabotage. Opening with the echoing reverb of an empty house, Showing Off is one emotive poem. After writing for independent musicians for about 7 years now, I’ve realised the difference that comes in the control and creative process when a musician has complete freedom over what they want to sing or perform about. Phoebe Green and Lucy make a choice selection of sounds that reflect this hollow space and it comes out aesthetically wonderful. Green’s vocals are on point, and flutter when the lyrics are a bit too real and painful.
Through spoken word, and poetry
Not all lyrics can be sung. Phoebe Green plays it smart with more spoken-word monologues on songs like “There’s Always Someone Kicking the Seat.” It is incredibly synth-heavy and layered, and you experience the instrumental loop for a while before Phoebe’s vocals come in. The music video for this song captures it accurately. The darker, all-pervasive choices fully condense from this point on and you’re joining her for the emotional roller coaster in her mind. I love when musical artists lean into different theories, philosophies, and beliefs in life in their early 20s. It leads to some of the most complex, polarising choices, and unusual methods we have ever heard in music history.
With Katherine Parlour, the next song, “I Don’t Play It Cool, I Play It Steaming,” comes on. It has a more recognisable pop palette in terms of the chords and vocal structure. It’s also worth enjoying these music videos, like the many indie films that play in art shows and museums. Phoebe Green uses her acerbic wit, self-deprecating humour that is famously British, and vocal inspirations from Imogen Heap and Oklou. Imagine a time warp giving you a different theme and pace in Polluting You With Me. If you’ve been on social media, you know how easy it is to assume the worst is going to happen in a relationship and head towards it without realising the depth of the gorge ahead.
Music through the years
Percussions have been pulled back, and synth ambiances dictate this album’s tonality. Phoebe Green put out her debut album, 2 A.M., at the age of 18. That means she’s been making music professionally for 10 years and evolved through a lot of production styles, performance styles, and her own maturity, which you can hear through her five grouped releases. The exposition linked to texting your partner late at night comes on with Screen Glow Halo. It is admirable consistency in not breaking how the chapters in this album are read. It never becomes boring either, though certain sound tropes can become predictable. If you’re a real singer-songwriter fan-you know that the pot of gold lies in the lyrics.
Through more intimate moments you hear her on songs like Clothes Still On and Double Vodka Lemonade. This is where the instrumental and production aspects get a lot more exciting. It isn’t the synth ambiances alone but variable plays in the rhythm that will keep the song unexpected for you. These are alt-pop experiments that show the incredible range and collaborative effort Phoebe and Lucy Green are able to conjure. If the opening song had the reverb of a hollow room. Now you are locked in an attic where the vocals are recorded in what seems like a historic microphone.
From the weeds, to the weeds
Traversing through preterm pain, shock, resentment and hopefully leading to progress, Phoebe Green ensures the audio diary she presents is the closest to what she would write. Her first release with The Green Dream Machine (her independent label) seems to erase any fine print to be personably only hers. Hopefully, like Bridger’s Saddest Factory Records, this can allow musicians to truly express their state of mind and musical journey instead of focusing on what the next trend is. As we know it, the world is leading toward premature nostalgia, and Green is mirroring what an entire generation feels:
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Self professed metalhead, moderately well read. If the music has soul, it's whole to me. The fact that my bio could have ended on a rhyme and doesn't should tell you a lot about my personality.
