Charli XCX just blew us away with her new EP
kIt seems like dropping one song at a time is sooo pre-2016: These days, musicians just announce and release new music on us pretty much at the same time now. Case in point: Charli XCX, who revealed her new EP Vroom Vroom and some new songs just days earlier this week — and has now released all four tracks in time for the weekend.
Vroom Vroom is a total departure from her former candy-pop aesthetic: It’s sleeker, darker, and stranger than anything XCX has ever released before. (I mean, just look at the cover.) More importantly though, it marks the first release on XCX’s Vroom Vroom Records, which is also hosting artists RIVRS and CuckooLander.
Featuring production from the weird-pop British production collective PC Music, the songs on Vroom Vroom are plasticine dreams, cheeky riffs on XCX’s preferred topics of choice: Her body and her ambition. “Trophy” flips the notion of the trophy partner (almost always a woman) and turns it into a self-aggrandizing solidarity anthem, whereas “Paradise” folds back in some of the romanticism that laces her work (“Tonight, we’re in paradise / soaring through the sky / seeing pink and white.”)
Meanwhile, “Vroom Vroom” and “Secret” both sound like the auditory equivalent of knowing winks, and the whole thing comes together like, well, a very fine piece of machinery. And while we’re thrilled to be jamming out to Vroom Vroom, we can’t wait for XCX’s next album.
