The thrill of the song is wrapped up in how it skirts any pressure to lay out its intentions, how it moves at its own whims. She may be channeling the want to be immaterial, the ability to evaporate like a wisp of smoke, but when she sings “I’m so nonphysical,” it comes with embodied longing, as if she’s aching for touch. She enters a new dimension in the chorus, switching from narrator to first-person, trading a Drake-like rhythmic delivery for her usual lithe, crystalline singing. Meanwhile, as if recreating the slipperiness of Bunny, Polachek darts through various images (blazing fireworks, a wet palette, a cut check), never resting long enough for you to grasp what’s next. It’s a characteristic display of PC Music alum Harle’s impulse to simultaneously send-up and pay homage to popular forms, with results too deliciously crisp to read as a joke.

–Puja PatelĬasting off the gossamer avant-pop of 2019’s Pang, Polachek and producer Danny L Harle opt for a sound that is both commercial and weird: a deep, juicy bassline befitting of the Top 40, a “ yoo hoo” whistle, a sample taken from Harle’s giggling baby, even marimba plinks that conjure an island vacation with Kygo.

It’s a one-act play of existential malaise and a sardonic anthem for those who can't help but seek out the spotlight. There’s some humor to it all forlorn, she recognizes that the world never stops turning, and that it’s fine to lie to ourselves if it helps pass the time. The song unfolds as a balancing act of vulnerability and expectation, of altruistic self-expression and the vanity of wanting to be seen, or even adored. “Working for the Knife' is her brooding, melancholic first major single back from this respite, and acts as an incisive warning about how much of our identity we give to our life’s greatest undertakings, and who we’re giving it up for. After a long and grueling world tour supporting her breakthrough album Be the Cowboy, the singer took time off in 2019, saying she needed a break from the “constant churn” of performance. Mitski would like to have a word on that.

The saying goes that if you do what you love, you’ll never have to work a day in your life.

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