More about: Charli XCX

What we have here is the first of its kind: an album made entirely on lockdown. Charli XCX’s latest record, how i’m feeling now, is a perfect distillation of the anxieties we must face and the fragile hopes we dare to hold tightly. It’s a glittering headrush – perhaps her most challenging work of all, in fact. Over a genre-spanning canvas, she spatters blitz-speed electronica with great strokes of straight-up murderous basslines, topping it off with fantastic sequins of pop. It’s as daring in a way that only boredom could allow; it’s as reflective in a way that only quarantine could allow us to be.

With so many artists putting their releases on the back burner in the face of the pandemic, Charli saw how i’m feeling now as an opportunity not only to save her sanity, but to save ours, too. Gunning to write and record the entire album in six weeks using only the tools she had at her fingertips and the help of her online collaborators, Charli elevated her futuristic state of mind to another dimension. “It’ll be very DIY — I’ll make it from scratch, very indicative of the times we’re in,” she promised during a Zoom session with fans, putting them at the fore by offering glimpses into the process through Instagram Live. The album is a testament to the fact that from the hardest times comes the greatest creative expression.

how i’m feeling now has unleashed the anarchist within, as Charli takes a sledgehammer not only to the rule book, but her own carefully built walls to protect herself. For this, she calls on her famed clique of producers, including mutant-pop purveyor A.G. Cook, at the helm of PC Music. But for this record, she’s bringing in a new weapon to her arsenal: Dylan Brady, of the wild, pop-deconstructionist duo 100 Gecs. It’s a collaboration we have been dying to see. He takes Charli’s chromatic, bubblegum verses on ‘claws’ and makes it a far meaner playground game with a fizzy, stomping cacophony. 

This album shines when Charli embraces Brady’s no-fucks-given attitude, bringing us a reckless production style that holds no bars. ‘pink diamond’ is nasty in all the right ways. To open an album with this sinister, sniper-like track is a threat. It’s like an immersive VR experience into a survival game, with Charli firing at you on all cylinders with militant vocals repeating, “I just wanna go real hard” over thumping laser shots and snarling synth. It makes you feel like you’re in an arcade of nightmares, with ‘anthems’ sounding like death by firing squad as you try to keep up on the wildest dance machine. This is Charli’s game, and she’s unbeatable. 

how i’m feeling now might have come from a place of both boredom and desperate need, but this is no throwaway album. This is, in her own words, ‘Next Level Charli’. No track better marks this intention than ‘c.20’. She samples herself from her track ‘Clique’, from the record’s forerunner Charli. It enters into a whole new sonic stratosphere: amped-up and explosive. But it has a pulse. Pop’s most daring fighter has a chink in her armour. “My clique running through my mind like a rainbow,” she sings, confessing, “I miss them, I miss them every night.” It’s a sharply relatable wish that she repeats and holds close to her: she misses her friends, she misses parties, she misses the good times – just like we all do. 

She wears her heart bravely on her sleeve, even though it terrifies her. Throughout lockdown, Charli has been living with her boyfriend, Huck Kwong. Before, the seven-year relationship had been running off the rails from both physical and emotional distance, but now, they’re stronger than ever. It’s something that has brought her bouts of joy as much as weakness, which she admits to with admirable courage. Her lyrics define the intensity of lockdown relationships. It’s a declaration of love. 

“I made my house a home with you,” she sings on the shimmering ‘7 years’, bridging between distance to inseparability. While Charli could easily rely on her production to carry her alone, the butterflies-inducing depth and detail which is brought from her lyrics is so arresting it can give you chills. On ‘forever’, she makes promises on what she knows are just tightly held hopes, recognising the fragility of their romantic bubble, “I know in the future, we won’t see each other, cold just like December, but I will always love you.”

These softer, pearly tracks barely conceal this anxiety. ‘detonate’ sees Charli admit to her self-destructive tendencies, “I don’t trust myself at all, why should you trust me? I don’t trust myself alone, why should you love me?” Its ends in a breathless whirl, almost malfunctioning in a cold sweat panic. It’s profound in the way ‘enemy’ is, over weighted, 80s-influenced guitar tones. Even though it’s stacked against a playful pop beat, the words, “Maybe you’re my enemy now I’ve finally let you come a little close to me” cut deep. 

The album is a careful balance of reckless energy and being unafraid to admit you’re frightened. “Wake up late, eat some cereal, try my best to be physical, lose myself in a TV show, staring out to oblivion, all my friends are invisible,” she sighs – the lyrics she wrote with the help of her fans on Instagram Live. It captures a sense of connectivity through this strange, universal experience. Everything she feels strikes an uncomfortably close chord. It’s through her own discomfort that she has created her most innovative and outright impressive album to date. Brave to the last, she grips onto optimism for the album’s closer, ‘visions’, with “all these voices telling me to hold on.” 

how i’m feeling now is out now via Asylum Records.

More about: Charli XCX