Georgia Nott, one half of New Zealand-based electronic pop duo BROODS, sojourns to her solo moniker Georgia Gets By, releasing her gently burning and emotionally searing second EP, Split Lip. The singer-songwriter’s second release for Luminelle Recordings arrives only eleven months removed from her previous EP and two years after her latest LP as part of BROODS, offering itself as a sonic expansion of its predecessor— this time with even more wah-pedal angst and dream-pop ear candy.
Split Lip reveals a tight six-song tracklist; each cut a gossamer account of confused, post-heartbreak turmoil and bittersweet reflection. Georgia Gets By remorsefully delivers emotional contradictions and uncertainties through her ethereal and breathy vocals. The title track, “Split Lip,” coalesces the project’s thematic uncertainty with lyrics, “Is it love?/ It’s too real/ Now I hate you so much,” Nott sings through emotionally drained utterances that swirl around reverb-glazed shoegaze instrumental— simple guitar melodies warping within an echo chamber of delay and phasers. A persistent bassline buzzes underneath glass-like hi-hats, making way for a minimal, bass-heavy refrain before “Split Lip” washes away into effect-laden feedback.
“Madeline,” the first and only single for Split Lip, released in June, offers perhaps the project’s most enthralling instrumental and ear-wormy refrain. Opening on a steady, commanding bassline, with lush and watery synth harmonics quickly filtering into the foreground to be bisected by alien-like electronics that swim through the instrumental and disappear back into the glide of a lazy drum groove. Nott’s vocals are eerily present over the instrumental’s aquatics (courtesy of producer John Velasquez), pleading with the titular Madeline to “Don’t let me fade away.” The track undergoes a third-act climax on the final chorus; red-hot and heavy shoegaze strumming explodes through the instrumental’s thin, watery film while Georgia Gets By flies into a higher, ascendant register that echoes resonantly through the mix. The intensity dissolves with siren-like feedback that quickly dissipates as the groove rides out and concludes the song.
As the tracklist wraps up, Split Lip remains a gentle simmer of dream-pop delicacy, occasionally boiling over into cathartic, grainy eruptions that are as pleasantly filthy as the cover art. Georgia Gets By opts out of subverting expectations with her second solo EP, instead deciding to expand upon them and cement the aesthetics of her newest moniker. The tracklist is brief and fleeting, but it supplies the listener with much to grasp in anticipation of a debut full-length LP.
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