Some records are just albums. Others are a moment. A secret handshake. You had to be there, huddled around a laptop speaker or feeling the bass rattle a club floor, to understand the seismic shift that was happening when Shygirl first dropped Alias. It wasn’t a debut album; it was a manifesto. A splintering of identity into four distinct, dangerous, and intoxicating personas—Baddie, Bonk, Bae, and Bovine—each one a facet of the artist who would later give us the masterpiece Nymph.
This was the blueprint. The raw code. Listening to the Shygirl Alias EP now, five years on, feels like finding the original, hand-drawn sketches for a skyscraper. The ambition, the swagger, the unapologetic vision—it’s all right there. Before the world at large caught on, this seven-track collection was a cult obsession, a password into a new dimension of electronic music. It’s the sound of chrome reflecting neon, of late-night tension and glorious release. It’s the grit under the gloss.
And now, for its 5th anniversary, it’s finally here. In your hands. On your turntable. For the very first time on a physical retail release, Alias has been pressed onto a slab of gorgeous, translucent light pink vinyl. This isn’t just a color choice; it’s the perfect visual language for the music itself—sweet but sharp, delicate but demanding. Holding this record, feeling its weight, and seeing that specific shade of pink feels like you’re holding the very essence of the Alias era.
Dropping the needle is a ceremony. The crackle gives way to the sinewy, hypnotic pulse of tracks that have become legendary. You hear the unmistakable, slinking synth of “SLIME,” a track so conveniently cool and filthy it should be illegal. You feel the addictive, sugar-rush hook of “TASTY,” a perfect slice of futuristic pop that still sounds like it was beamed in from 2030. Each of the seven tracks is a world unto itself, a tight, flawless dispatch from the bleeding edge of sound.
This isn’t just a reissue; it’s the tangible artifact of an origin story. It’s for the day-one fans who want to commemorate that lightning-in-a-bottle moment, and it’s for everyone who arrived with Nymph and needs to understand the genius that was brewing just beneath the surface. This Alias light pink vinyl isn’t just another record for your shelf. It’s a piece of history. It’s the proof. It’s the moment an icon revealed herself, and you absolutely need to own it.
You know that feeling when you discover something underground just before it breaks through? That is what Shygirl’s “Alias” EP was to those of us who caught it in 2020 – a secret handshake, a wink across a smoke-filled club, a password to a world where bass rattles your ribcage and lyrics make you blush in the dark.
Now, five years later, this foundational seven-track collection that introduced us to Blane Muise’s alter ego gets its first-ever physical release on gorgeous light pink vinyl. It is like watching your favorite cult film finally get the deluxe treatment it always deserved.
If you’ve never encountered Shygirl, imagine the lovechild of grime, deconstructed club music, and Y2K pop audacity, delivered with a coolness that can’t be manufactured. On tracks like “Slime” and “Tasty,” her voice slithers between menace and seduction, half-whispered commands riding atop production that sounds like London nightlife distilled into sound waves.
What’s fascinating about revisiting “Alias” now is how it stands as both prophecy and blueprint. Before her critically acclaimed debut album “Nymph” would cement her place in the avant-garde pop pantheon in 2022, these seven tracks were already mapping the territory. The personas she explores here – BRAT, BADDIE, BONK, and BOVINE – aren’t just clever marketing; they’re fractals of feminine identity explored through a lens both playful and profound.
Last summer, I watched Shygirl command a festival stage with the confidence of someone who’d been headlining for decades, not years. The crowd knew every word to “Tasty,” screaming back its deliciously explicit chorus with abandon. What struck me wasn’t just her evolution as a performer but how these early tracks had aged like fine wine – still sounding futuristic five years on.
The vinyl itself feels like an artifact from a more interesting timeline – light pink like the neon of a club sign reflected in a rain puddle. There’s something fitting about this music finally existing in physical space when it once felt so digitally native, born of Discord servers and SoundCloud links passed between those in the know.
Buy this if you worship at the altar of SOPHIE, if you’ve worn out your Arca records, if you understand that Björk paved the way for a certain kind of fearless feminine electronic experimentation. Buy this if you already know Shygirl and want to own a piece of her origin story. Or buy this if you are simply tired of music that doesn’t make you feel something visceral – because whatever else it might be, “Alias” is never, ever boring.
The record spins, the bass drops, and suddenly your living room becomes the most interesting club in town. That is the magic of Shygirl – turning private moments into communal experiences, even when you’re dancing alone.
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