Indigo De Souza

There are moments standing on a high ledge where wild space beckons. In that moment,
instinct stirs: “What if I just jumped?” It’s been described as “the call of the void,” an experience
somehow more primal than even feeling or urge. On her new album, Precipice (due July 25th
via Loma Vista), Indigo De Souza looks over the creative and spiritual cliff and just leaps. The
North Carolina native is a prolific, poetic singer-songwriter who already has three albums and
four EPs in just seven years, with her most recent full-length (2023's All of This Wild End)
earning rave reviews for her daring vocals and thrilling songwriting. But on her latest, De Souza
hears the void calling and calls back, taking control of difficult memories and charged emotions
via pop bombast and diaristic clarity, and finding a stronger self. “Life feels like always being on
the edge of something without knowing what that something is,” the singer-songwriter says.
"Music gives me ways to harness that feeling. Ways to push forward in new directions."
On the album’s title track, De Souza faces down the potential darkness of change, and finds
hope in surrendering: "Coming to a precipice/ Holding on for dear life/ Looking out into the
world/ Everything has gone dark." That sort of emotional daredevilry is definitively not new for
De Souza. Her catalog brims with unwavering honesty and unflinchingly personal songwriting,
including most recently the familial excavation on the pained and mighty All of This Will End. “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 muses. To that end, Precipice cracks De
Souza’s world open. As a new challenge, the songwriter took on blind studio sessions in Los
Angeles, reveling in the expanded pool of collaborators and ability to focus on music. “I’d been
wanting to work on more pop-leaning music for a while, so when I came out to LA I made sure
to meet with people that could help bring that to life,” she says. “I wanted to make music that
could fill your heart with euphoria while you dance along.”
In those sessions, she made a quick and deep connection with producer Elliott Kozel—a
musician who has produced and collaborated with the likes of SZA and Yves Tumor, not to
mention scoring TV with FINNEAS. The two quickly got to work on album highlight “Not Afraid”,
the track setting the tone for the album's bold defiance of the unknown. “What, what does it look
like, when you are free?/ When you are being true?/ When you let go, the people you love are
free when they’re with you too,” she sings. The track also signaled the start of a long and
important collaboration. “Elliott is really good at allowing space for songs to reveal themselves,
and I felt very seen and respected both musically and personally,” De Souza adds. “That song
became a compass for what I wanted the album to be: pop songs with meaning and feeling, pop
songs with lyrics that tap into raw humanity.”
Lead single “Heartthrob” exemplifies the ecstatic duality the pair found, a way to both bring
immediate energy and thoughtful depth. The track is a fanged rebuke of those who exploit and
prey on young people, delivered in panoramic indie rock glow. Multi-instrumentalist Jesse
Schuster’s chugging guitar riff pushes De Souza’s delivery into a headrush, her voice wavering
somewhere between pain and fury. "God, when I’m a grown up/I wanna have a full cup/A true
heartthrob," she shakes, a satirical jab at the false safety that some adults can exude and an
honest cry to inspire light and freedom in the people she loves. "I’ve lived through harmful
experiences in my past that are helpful to process through music.” De Souza says. “A way to
remind myself that I am still a full human being"
As with so much great pop, Precipice transcends the giddy highs of new attraction and the
haunted lows of a broken heart. But true to her idiosyncratic approach, De Souza somehow
manages to invert and subvert both, finding their points of connection rather than their
differences. The thrumming synthpop of “Crying Over Nothing” exemplifies those new, glistening
heights musically, even as the lyrics digest unimaginable heartbreak. De Souza skips over the
coyly shuffling rhythm, her voice cracking into the upper register with a warm glow akin to the
‘80s synths. “There’s some pain that follows no matter where you go or how much you try to
lose it, pain that comes from memories you can’t erase and love you can’t unfeel,” she says.
"This song is about the one that got away. That feeling of being haunted by loss."
The Robyn-esque “Crush” follows, a sugar burst that subtly weaves its way across the dance
floor. “Come up to get some air/ It’s like you're playing solitaire/ So good to see your face/ I was
missing you when you were down there,” she sways, the knowing grin practically beaming
through the track. The embodiment of catching feelings, “Crush” rides a gritty snap-pop drum
loop from percussionist Jonathan Smith and tingly synth prickles. “I remember thinking about
how, in the same way that I sometimes have to talk new lovers through eating me out, I also
have to help them understand how to care for me in ways that make me feel good and seen,”
De Souza blushes.
But of course even the most hypercharged crushes can crumble—and the sighing
“Heartbreaker” was written when the person she was falling for on “Crush” eventually broke her
heart. While De Souza’s voice acrobatically flickers across the rest of the album, here she
delivers this pained memory more simply, with her full throat: “When I wake up, still thinking that
you’re there/ And it all comes flooding back to me, I’m living in a nightmare,” she cries, churning
piano and ghostly guitar floating in the edges. “I was broken up with, and I flew out to LA as
quickly as possible so I could get to the studio to make a song instead of being at home, sad
and lashing out,” De Souza recalls. “My heart was fully soaked in poisonous pain, and I am
deeply grateful for the creative space to process what I was feeling.”
On album highlight “Be Like the Water”, there are times where you can practically feel the tears
dripping on the microphone. But rather than mourning, these are tears of awe, a song of
amazement at the possibility of living truly and on your own path. “It’s about being brave and
protecting your energy, following your gut,” De Souza says. “It’s a reminder that you can always
follow your heart and your spirit, but you can also make boundaries and choose your own
direction.” To achieve that spiritual depth, Kozel’s production bends between mantric ethereality
and golden Americana. Spectral synth tones and finger chimes play like a yogic drone, while
gleaming organ puts a direct frame on De Souza’s verses. “I won't be sorry/ And I won't be
silent/ I'm temporary/ I am an island," she sings, her ownership of herself overcoming the pains
that pervade the album.