“Didn’t know the difference between loving and a haunting,” Indigo De Souza sings on “Heartthrob”—a fearless, full-throated song about being taken advantage of in her youth. “I really put my back into it,” she repeats on the refrain, hitting those euphoric pop swoops as she fiercely reclaims her body and sense of self again.
This is the first single and introduction to Precipice, De Souza’s fourth studio album—and her poppiest, most potent yet. The word “precipice” presented itself anew to the Connecticut-born, North Carolina-raised singer-songwriter while working with producer Elliott Kozel (SZA, Yves Tumor, Finneas). “We had been messing around, writing more and more songs,” she says. “At that stage, we had to pare back. But I had all these little segments of things that never worked out. I must have written the chorus of the track ‘Precipice’ when I was in a bad mood and shoved it into some folder. I found it again and it felt really right. But it was also funny—I don’t think I’d ever used that word any other time in my life before.” It came to take on a personal meaning: “I felt like I was on the edge of something new, without fully knowing what.”
From their first blind session together in a Los Angeles studio, Kozel and De Souza found their collaborative spark. The musician, known for her exhilarating, earnest indie sound, had been shopping around for producers to help her propel a long-held ambition to make all-out, ocean-deep emotive pop music. An album wasn’t even on the cards—“I just became enthralled with Elliott and what we were making,” she says. “Then, suddenly, most of Precipice was there.”
They’ve made 11 resplendent tracks that embrace De Souza’s open-hearted lyricism, through which she considers mental health, her own questionable decisions, and falling in and out of love—all with frenetic pop energy. After that, they kept recording, De Souza visiting LA from her home in a small mountain village in western North Carolina.
When De Souza was on tour last fall, Hurricane Helene destroyed her home and most of her possessions—save for a favorite guitar, laptop, and some childhood trinkets her roommates managed to save. She went back to LA to process that with Kozel and wrote a whole other record. “It was without any expectation or direction,” she says. “That’s more grunge, guitar-centered, with a bit of pop, and some very sad ballads.” It’s already been recorded—that, along with another, earlier project that she describes as leaning “experimental country.”
It must be strange, I posit to De Souza, for works and pieces of art made after experiencing such big emotions and hardships to come out in a twisted timeline. “It’s funny,” she says. “I’m at the whim of how the industry works.”
But with Precipice comes a clarity. “This was made with maybe my clearest sense of vision, and knowing my emotions in a new way,” she says. “It’s scary but sublime. I’m embracing the chaos. And though it might not be fully uncomplicated or clear all the time, I feel energized by this vision.”
Below, Indigo De Souza talks to Vogue about pop, finding her people (and a new home) in LA, and not fearing the precipice anymore.
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Vogue: Has writing always been a salve for you? Or can it be the opposite, where writing becomes difficult because it’s how you process things, and…sometimes you don’t want to process things.
Indigo De Souza: Oh, both, absolutely. Sometimes it feels really easy to process emotions through music, and it’s flowing out of me. And then I can be quite stubborn about writing, because of how much it makes me face what I’m feeling. I don’t really know how to write from anywhere that isn’t a deeply emotional space. Sometimes I can feel hesitant to pick up the guitar. I force myself to do it. I’ll be very, very emotional about something and I’ll know that it would help to play guitar and write.
With what you’ve been through, I wonder how you relate to your previous body of work now?
All of my past albums are really special to me in different ways, and the music is very close to my heart. Every album that I make feels very different from the last one, and it feels like I’m always moving through different modalities of writing. So when I listen to past music, sometimes it’s almost mystifying to me how it even happened. Sometimes I can’t even remember writing a song, or how I was trying to present the emotions within that song. I was thinking about “Always”: It’s so intense, and the way that we play it live is really specific—there’s a lot of screaming. How I wrote it and what I wanted to do with it is a blur. I’m very present with the songs I’m making, but the ones I’ve made in the past are like ghosts.
“Not Afraid” was the first song that was written for Precipice. What were those emotions you were using?
Honestly, I was just trying to connect with Elliot and impress him. Within the first hour, I knew he was special. I liked his energy and way of working. I’d never done a blind session before, but we just clicked in every way. I wanted to put my best foot forward, with my boldest lyrics and way of being. He made me feel comfortable enough to do that too.
“Heartthrob” was the first release and it has a really powerful narrative about being taken advantage of as a young woman. How did you develop that?
I’ve been thinking a lot about how to speak about this song in interviews without being graphic or triggering. I wrote this about a situation I was in as a youth, but I wanted to write about a collective experience, especially for women, of what is unfortunately a common thing: being young and being taken advantage of by someone older. I found a lot of freedom in turning that feeling of entrapment and despair into something really powerful and loud.
“Crush” and “Heartbreaker” feel like twin songs—one about that first sugar-rush that comes from liking someone new, and the other about the ache of heartbreak that can follow. How did you curate the record?
This album was maybe the easiest for me to order the songs, but I always find it pretty tough. You’re right, though—those two songs are written about the exact same person, and those exact emotions I was feeling.
This album houses songs that are both a return to your guitar-led early work, and that take up more surprising, pop-driven elements. Why pop this time?
Part of the reason I came to LA, and why I was shopping around different producers, was because I always wanted to make pop. I had a vision of making pop music that had these deep, meaningful lyrics. Pop is literally my favorite genre of music. It also felt relieving to inhabit pop in the studio, because I am always embodying such heavy, cathartic, emotional stuff. Not that pop isn’t emotional or deep—it is, but it has a specific kind of joy to it that I was hoping to capture.
Elliott isn’t a pop producer—and that’s why I was a little resistant when it was first suggested that we get together. But my want to make pop and his ability to make whatever music he wants as a multifaceted producer made something special.
What kind of pop music do you love?
I’m obsessed with super punchy, glossy, energetic, and romantic-feeling pop. I love Mura Masa—working with him is on my bucket-list—as well as Charli XCX and Caroline Polachek.
Can you tell me about the cover art? I know your mom designs your covers. This one is particularly striking, with the skeleton creature picking through the water.
I want each new album cover to show a character getting older and older. This record is brighter and of higher clarity than anything I’ve made before—the sounds are so crisp and potent. It made me think of a beautiful coral reef and this colorful underwater world. The “precipice,” here, is being in and out of water.
How has the concept of home and community evolved for you?
I still feel like I’m on the precipice of something totally new—I don’t know how it’s going to turn out. I had lived in North Carolina my whole life, in pretty small towns. Moving to LA is such a huge step out of my comfort zone, but that’s been so rewarding and impactful for my art. I can really make music all the time if I want to. My collaborators live down the street. It feels like an energetic, creative place for me.
I got so used to this land-based community in North Carolina. Everything feels small, deep, and nuanced. We hang around the fire, go on hikes. I had my birthday party there recently and we had a ceremony in a field and did cake under the stars. We sang together and spoke words. I’m learning to appreciate different kinds of community and open up to what LA offers. I am inspired by how ambitious people are here, and seeing people try to express themselves as their best versions. Everyone is constantly workshopping their craft and that’s beautiful.
This is also the first record you’ve put out since your borderline personality disorder diagnosis. I wonder what that’s like: to put a name to something while you’re making art, and seeing your art-making with that sense of clarity.
Knowing that I have a name for how I am and feel, that there’s a blueprint and resources for this diagnosis, makes me feel very grateful. I have a DBT [Dialectical Behavior Therapy] group here in LA that is so great. I think you can hear the clarity in my music that I didn’t have before. I have long felt pretty confused—and while things are definitely still complicated, I have more ground to stand on as I make my art.
What’s inspiring you right now?
I’ve been letting my brain rot with this season of Love Island… but really, what inspires me most is the human experience. It might be Love Island or a deep conversation with someone while watching geese walk around the lake.
This conversation has been edited and condensed.
