SWALLOW! ’s late-’90s signposting lands nearly two years on from FKA twigs ’ Eusexua , undebatable harbinger of this current moment, as Troye Sivan sources Will Orbit dupes and After churn out algorithm-gaming trip-slop . With the same meals traveling up and down the food chain, songs like “Sublime” and “Eternal” have to fight over scraps. Shygirl and her collaborators get ahead of the pack when they push into the greener pastures of big beat and IDM. “Luvli” flashes its warning colors in Prodigy red and yellow; “Submit” is dance-punk chewed up in Richard D. James ’ pearly incisors ; “Déjà Vu” proposes Shy as a sort of grown PinkPantheress . “We were made for each other,” she purrs, a sweet nothing instantly turned into a threat by the pitched-down goblin on her tail.

In press materials accompanying SWALLOW! , Shygirl stated her initial goal “to make indie music,” a nebulous designation clarified somewhat by her secondary directive: “I think we need to do some full band stuff.” The bonkers electronics, i.e.…