On the quilt of Shygirl’s new EP, ALIAS, her eyes and lips poke via a taut, waxy membrane of flesh. Sitting someplace between a David Cronenberg imaginative and prescient of physique horror and the eerie carnality of an Eva Hesse latex sculpture, the London-based musician’s options are able to be twisted and become whoever the artist fancies turning into that day. That’s precisely what she supposed.
“It type of stemmed from the primary lockdown, the place it was simply me and the music and it felt like a extremely introspective interval, I assume,” Shygirl explains. “I simply love that concept of taking the acquainted options we affiliate with individuals—the eyes, the mouth—and warping that, pushing towards this concept of how we establish an individual by sight, and the way we learn individuals. As a result of I decide individuals once I have a look at them, and I do know individuals have been doing that with me. I believe it ended up being a bit extra spooky than I initially anticipated, although,” she provides, laughing.
It seems the “alias” Shy is referring to within the title is certainly one of 4 alter egos—with Kardashian-esque aptitude, they’re named Baddie, Bovine, Bae, and Bonk—that she slips between throughout the course of ALIAS’s seven tracks. Within the photographs accompanying this text, we see Bovine decked out in white-hot London label Charlotte Knowles, certainly one of 4 designers she and artistic director Mischa Notcutt turned to when determining the way to costume every character. So who precisely is Bovine, beneath that fabulous shearling jacket and printed mesh two-piece? “Bovine is like this woman I bear in mind studying about in books once I was a child,” Shygirl explains. “A complicated woman who thinks she’s all that, and is the category bitch—quintessentially English, however with an unsightly title. Bovine is that woman I used to examine in tales, and I hated her, but additionally type of liked her, as a result of she’s the attention-grabbing one.”
For an artist like Shygirl, it makes an odd type of sense. It’s her willingness to embrace a heady mixture of genres that makes ALIAS so thrilling, because it drifts from the frantic UK storage beats of “TASTY,” to the itchy, glitchy videogame synths and grime-adjacent circulation of “LENG,” to the four-to-the-floor thump and fizzy Europop sirens of “SIREN.” Her Instagram bio reads “LYRICALLY SEXXXY 24/7”—a declare her soft-spoken, nonchalant vocals greater than dwell as much as. “I am a freak within the sheets, and I am going the entire night time / I hear they name me shy, I can solely surprise why,” she hisses on one of many EP’s standout, “FREAK,” made together with her common collaborator, the equally ascendant London producer Sega Bodega. And at the same time as she firmly marks her personal territory as an artist, it’s onerous not to consider the wealthy seam of Black feminine musicians who’ve pushed towards the boundaries of the genres anticipated of them—from Janet Jackson to Kelis to FKA Twigs—but whose narratives have been pressured to suit awkwardly into the confines of R&B, even whereas they moved between a wildly eclectic vary of sonic palettes.
However together with her varied alter-egos and wilfully experimental sound, Shygirl is making certain she’s one step forward of any makes an attempt to field her in. “Once I was contemplating bringing all these totally different sides of myself to the challenge and making an attempt to elucidate it to myself, I used to be like, how can I be all this stuff without delay?” she says of ALIAS. A technique of expressing this got here through a collection of 3D avatars Shygirl created—coming to life as one thing between Bratz dolls and Y2K-era videogames—with the assistance of CG artist Sy Blake and animator Maurice Andresen. “There’s this bizarre factor once I’m utilizing myself because the muse,” she provides. “There’s a way of self-gratification that’s nearly childlike, and making myself right into a online game character is what I’d have dreamed about doing as a child. It was only a lot simpler to try to personify these alter-egos, and I wished to have a visible illustration to assist clarify that. As a result of I do grow to be these individuals, relying on what I resolve to put on any given day.”
If there’s one other factor Shygirl is aware of, it’s “what to put on on any given day,” as she places it. It doesn’t take greater than a cursory scroll via her Instagram feed to see that she’s firmly embedded within the present crop of agenda-setting designers rising from London, all of whom helped outline the varied characters on ALIAS. There’s her longstanding friendship with Mowalola Ogunlesi, whose designs outfitted Bonk; her love for ASAI’s signature “scorching wok” mesh tops, right here worn by Bae; and naturally Bovine’s relationship with Charlotte Knowles, whose fall marketing campaign she appeared in sporting one of many designer’s signature tattoo prints.
