Indigo De Souza (Loma Vista)

North Carolina-native singer/songwriter Indigo De Souza first gained notoriety with her sophomore album, 2023’s Any Shape You Take, featuring the stand-out single “Younger And Dumber.” In addition to that noteworthy record, De Souza has been quite prolific in recent years, releasing three albums and four EPs in just seven years, while earning respect for her daring and honest lyrics along with her melodic Indie/Pop songwriting sensibilities. 

After this lengthy period of sustained creative output, the title of De Souza’s new album, Precipice, is telling. For her new effort, De Souza chose to look over the figurative cliff and take a leap, pushing her music forward in new directions. While her past work dealt with heavy topics such as heartbreak and mental health struggles, this time she wanted to do something different, and focused her energy on making a more uplifting Pop album. “I love Pop music, and I love the way it makes me feel,” she told NME in a recent interview. “I really needed a break from writing albums that are sad and heavy, and diving into really deep, dark subjects. I wanted to write something that embodied the feeling of joy that Pop music gave me.”

As a new challenge, De Souza left North Carolina to take on blind studio sessions in Los Angeles, meeting up with an expanded pool of potential collaborators. In those sessions, she forged a deep connection with producer Elliott Kozel, who has worked with SZA, Yves Tumor, and Finneas. In Kozel, De Souza felt that she had found a musical soulmate.

“I left that day feeling so excited, like I’d created this collaboration with someone that I knew was gonna be really important,” she says. “We got really deeply into this flow together – to the point where it really felt like we kinda had one mind. We didn’t even have to talk anymore, we’d just be in the room giggling and making crazy voices and playing things.”

Out of these sessions came the uptempo radio focus track, “Heartthrob,” a guitar-driven Power Pop anthem that has received strong support from Radio Milwaukee, KLRR, KCMP, WFPK, WRLT and WTMD, to name a few. Other stations have been spinning the synth-laced dance track “Crying Over Nothing” and the pensive “Be Like The Water.” The album rose to #33 on the JBE Non-Comm chart in July. 

“Life feels like always being on the edge of something without knowing what that something is,” De Souza says of Precipice. “Music gives me ways to harness that feeling.” 

De Souza will be embarking on a North American tour in the fall, plus festival appearances at Bumbershoot and Pitchfork Paris and London. She is partnering with PLUS1 and The Trevor Project on the upcoming tour, so that a dollar of each ticket sold will directly support The Trevor Project’s mission to end suicide among LGBTQ+ youth.