Up-and-coming indie-pop star Pixey has dropped her latest single, Electric Dream. The new track – a dreamlike, anthemic slice of dance-pop – is the third release from the Liverpool-based singer’s upcoming EP Free To Live In Colour, which is due out on March 24th. Electric Dream skilfully juxtaposes a Robyn-esque, feel-good melody with some superb (and playfully dystopian) lyrical reflections on the cold realities of the digital age: “Virtual loving, think it’s a sign/ Not a phase, a future of waves/ With analogue souls and digital minds/ Eternal in age, a programmed embrace/ A memory of the days that’ve gone by/ What happened to life?”
In a press statement accompanying the new song, Pixey (real name Lizzie Hillesdon) said: “‘Electric Dream’ was originally written as a piano ballad but after finishing the lyrics I felt the song worked as a dance track. I wrote it to make sense of being locked in with nothing to rely on but technology. The verses are all of my anxieties that come with that – like trying to simulate humanity digitally and what kind of a future that would be – but the choruses are about the imperfections of real life that technology and AI can’t give us.”
As you might expect from an artist who describes herself in her Twitter bio as “the indie Britney Spears“, Pixey’s musical influences are manifold: the singer – who originally hails from Parbold in West Lancashire – has previously cited Grimes, George Harrison, The Prodigy, De La Soul, Björk and Canadian multi-instrumentalist Mac Demarco as key inspirations. Electric Dream and the previous two single releases from Free To Live In Colour (its title track and Just Move) encapsulate her willingness to delve into a variety of unexpected soundscapes.
Just Move fuses the raga rock edge of The Beatles’ Tomorrow Never Knows with pinches of soul and the psychedelic indie vibe you might associate with 90s indie favourites like The Cardigans and Cornershop. Meanwhile the lyrics from Free To Live In Colour signpost the song’s own exploration of “English Americana“; with distinct sonic echoes of the surf-pop stylings of Chris Isaak and Lana Del Rey.
Pixey’s ongoing rise to prominence was given another boost with her inclusion on the NME 100 list for 2021; a prestigious index of emerging talent that has previously unearthed the potential of Arlo Parks and YungBlud. The iconic music journal hailed the Lancastrian vocalist for her “sleek, alternative pop-rock nous” and “the sort of tunes you want to hear as you’re leaving the indie club night at sunrise.”
The dream-pop merchant’s ascent has not been without its challenges though: in 2016 the singer was hospitalised with a near-fatal viral infection. In a 2019 interview with Wigan Today, she revealed that music was a key motivation in her recovery from the frightening episode, giving her “…a real focus and distraction from what I’d been through and the way I was feeling, as well as a new perspective on what I wanted to do.” She added: “ I’d never been a writer at all, I’d always sang or played keys in other people’s bands, so rediscovering music from a whole new angle was refreshing.”
The track listing for Pixey’s upcoming Free To Live In Colour EP is as follows:
1. Just Move
2. California
3. Electric Dream
4. The Mersey Line
5. Free To Live In Colour
