In the remarkably unsexy year of 2020, you wouldn’t expect an artist to evoke the glowing grime of a club so exactly, but Shygirl manages to do it with her latest EP, ALIAS. Similar to 2018’s Cruel Practice, ALIAS finds Shygirl spitting vulgarities like they’re her typical weekend plans, aided by oily bass lines from producers like longtime collaborator Sega Bodega. This time, though, Shygirl’s voice carries a bit more over the muck; the production is bolder and more focused, like throwing a sharpened knife at a wall rather than a smattering of darts.
In general, this EP is about fucking. Shygirl playfully contemplates her parents’ failures in her upbringing as she wonders if you “like what you see,” offers her freakiness “on the bed/on the floor,” and name-drops “your daddy,” who’s calling her on the phone right now. It all might come across as gaudy if it wasn’t so fun. Shygirl’s delivery has a dark-horse quality to it; her voice is buttery soft, but she handles lyrics with venomous precision, knowing when to bite and when to soften.
“Bawdy” is a good example of this skill—Shygirl begins with sharp commands—“grind it right/arch back/hand to thigh”—then practically sighs through the chorus, telling you to “come and get it” while a bursting synth line that sounds like a much hotter “Party Up (Up in Here)” loops. She tends to favor murmuring bass and glimmering synth lines, reminiscent of Amnesia Scanner or the bubblegum bass of Slayyyter.
But Shygirl’s music skews darker, heavier, and oozes a very specific kind of sexuality, the kind that usually gets scared out of women by seventh-grade health classes and angry men on the internet. It’s self-indulgent, and it revolves around Shygirl—her body, how nasty she is, what she wants you to do—not any particular lover, and least of all, romance. She offers up brief glimpses into a glamorously dirty life, detailing nights spent “arse up, titty out” and riding in a “fast car/past all the city lights.” There’s an understated line in “Slime,” a song that lives up to its name, slippery with a taunting trap loop running through it, that encapsulates the way that Shygirl so perfectly evokes party culture.
The 808 bass speeds up, preparing the listener for the moment it drops, and as soon as it does, Shygirl says matter-of-factly from her gut, “She came to fuck.” The line nearly made me laugh the first time I heard it, it’s so blunt yet so vague. We are never given any information as to who “she” is other than the suggestion that she’s “a baddie,” but with Shygirl’s delivery and the track’s grumbling, slithering production, you can’t help but feel like you know exactly what she means. She’s talking about your first night out after a breakup, or when you got dressed up to find a suitable enough ex-frat bro at your local bar, or when you’re in the middle of a sweaty room, you’re dancing with all your friends, and you think you’ll never feel sad again.
“She came to fuck” energy defies gender or context—it’s the concept of having a single goal and the gall to believe that you’ll either achieve it or be completely unfazed if you don’t. It contains the driving forces behind a good party: shamelessness and debauchery. In a year of no touching, these euphoric party moments feel far away, but Shygirl’s endearing hedonism brings that sweaty room a bit closer. ALIAS is a glittering light, a portal into the future and everything you might do.
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