Erika de Casier - Still [CD]

4AD

£10.35

Format: CD
Catalogue No.: 4AD0639CD
Barcode: 0191400063921
Release Date: 23 Feb 2024
Genre: Hip Hop/R&B

Erika de Casier isn’t searching for perfection – she’s just trying to show you where she’s at right now. As ever, Still proves that de Casier is a master of writing songs that speak to universal experiences of modern life, even for all their specificities and quirks. If Essentials (2019) was filled with perfect songs about flirtation and new love, and Sensational (2021) added wrinkles in the form of partners who were rude and plainly annoying, Still sees de Casier writing about genuine heartbreak with a new clarity. For all the new heaviness that arises on Still - and the subtle political valence that comes alongside - de Casier’s music remains as fun and sensual as it’s always been. Still confirms that there are few artists making music that so freely slips between sensitivity and irreverence, sex and sadness. Among all the success, the accolades, the acclaim, her greatest achievement may be, simply: she’s still Erika de Casier.

All of this is to say the album is classic de Casier, her idiosyncratic mix of luxuriant electronica and moonlit R&B drilled further into that one-of-a-kind sound here. Her songwriting is as masterful and universal as ever, and her proficiency as a producer heightened as she produces other voices (They Hate Change, Shygirl, Blood Orange) for the first time. She also invites new collaborators, working with live musicians in addition to samples. N, co-producer of Essentials and Sensational, returns here, but added to the fold are Jonathan Jull Ludvigsen, Carl Emil Johansen, Niels Kirk, Christian Rhode Lindinger, Nick León, Kirsten Nyhus Janssen and Tobias Sachse, adding live drums, synths, guitar, bass and more. These musicians, as well as de Casier’s chorus of friends who sing and rap on the record, add a jolt and crackle to her world; where those first two records felt like dispatches straight from the recesses of de Casier’s brain – intimate thoughts slinking through the ether at 2am – Still feels like a conversation between friends in the backroom of a crowded bar. Those friends embolden de Casier to deliver some of her most emphatic songs ever, put on display brilliantly on ‘Lucky,’ her first offering from the album out today.

About Erika de Casier

The 33-year-old Danish singer, songwriter and producer built a cult following with her 2019 debut album Essentials, and built on that “cult” designation with 2021’s Sensational, her first for 4AD. Since then, she’s performed at some of the biggest festivals in the world, written for pop stars (NewJeans) and sung on hyped dance tracks (Mura Masa, Shygirl). But when she ushers you into the expanses of her third album she’s inviting you to leave any crass The Nordics’ Next Big Thing or Rising Alt-Pop Star epithets at the door. She may have won a lot of new fans in the past three years, and a lot of high-profile collaborators (Dua Lipa, Blood Orange, Eartheater, etc.) but as her new album’s title confirms, she’s the same old Erika de Casier. Still.

Tracklisting
1. Right This Way
2. Home Alone
3. Lucky
4. The Princess
5. ice (ft. They Hate Change)
6. Test It
7. ooh
8. Believe It
9. Anxious
10. Ex-Girlfriend (ft. Shygirl)
11. Toxic
12. My Day Off
13. Twice (ft. Blood Orange)
14. Someone