Norwegian singer-songwriter Marie Ulven’s second album I’m Doing It Once more Child! is an introspective gem
Lady in Purple makes bed room pop for a worldwide bed room. Marie Ulven was an introspective Norwegian teenager, from the small port city of Horten, when she turned a cult determine along with her selfmade lo-fi tunes like “I Wanna Be Your Girlfriend” and “Summer time Despair.” As Lady in Purple, she blew up right into a bona fide star along with her 2021 debut album If I Might Make It Go Quiet, in deeply private songs about scuffling with psychological well being and embracing her queer id. She received much more well-known than she ever may have anticipated, particularly with the Finneas-produced “Serotonin.” She even hung out final summer time opening for her fan Taylor Swift on the Eras Tour.
On I’m Doing It Once more Child!, Ulven picks up proper the place she left off, in candid synth-pop diary entries about her emotional turmoil. However now 25, Ulven has opened up her vary, making an attempt to chronicle the highs in addition to the lows. She even sings in regards to the unique expertise of a cheery temper, as if she’s describing a visit to Mars. Within the opener “I’m Again,” she exults, “Hey, I took a bathe immediately!” Generally it’s the little victories that rely.
Throughout these songs, Ulven sums up the life classes she’s picked up within the years since her debut, along with her realization that “Time doesn’t cease for a tragic little woman.” I’m Doing It Once more Child is as private and weak as ever, written and produced along with her collaborator Matias Tellez. She’s nonetheless her standard melodramatic self, confessing, “I do know I tend / Melancholic tragedy all the time appears to comply with me round.” But she reaches for positivity within the title tune, a peppy New Order-style synth groove the place she boasts, “Received the Japanese denim / and loafers on my ft / Lookin’ like a rock star from the Seventies.”
As on her debut, Lady in Purple actually shines when she steps up the vitality stage in pissed-off songs the place she’s getting her coronary heart kicked round. “Phantom Ache” rocks out with warped guitar and distorted vocals, as she chants “Let me love you in case you let me” till it turns right into a scarily obsessive loop. “You Want Me Now?” is a spiteful kiss-off, with a wonderful visitor verse from Sabrina Carpenter. Ulven actually is aware of introduce a visitor star, yelling, “You recognize what could be actually fucking cool on this? Sabrina!” Within the finale “*****,” she goes for Studio 54 disco glitz, singing, “5 star ranking and I’m writing a success.” However even when she’s approaching powerful, Lady in Purple has the identical emotional honesty that made her a star within the first place.
