Over the last five years, Sydney musician Imogen Jones has come to be one of Australian pop's most experimental and forward-thinking names, consistently pushing the boundaries with her Lupa J project. As a result, she's become somewhat of a cult favourite, often finding praise as she twists and warps traditional pop songwriting with dense productions that typically, are bent with this experimentation and club-centric drive that see us returning back to her time and time again. Since releasing her A House I Don't Remember EP in 2017, Lupa J has been teasing her debut album - Swallow Me Whole, out July 5 - with a consistent run of singles among career-bests. There was Drift, a glitching number that combined ethereal vocals with a Jon Hopkins-esque pulse; You're In My Headphones, which brought together saccharine-sweet vocals with a clanging production for what may be her most accessible track yet; finalised with The Crash, a personal favourite that twisted together a pacing production with light vocals over the top.
Now, with the album release looming, she shares one final taste. Pull Me Under, premiering today via Pilerats, is one of her darker and more club-bound singles, contrasting light, twinkling synth with a thick bass synth that seems to swallow the rest of the single (in a good way), which when combined with her soothing vocals over the top, creates an over-sensory, maximalist adventure that's easily amongst her most experimental. "Pull Me Under is the last track I'm releasing before you get the full album," she says on the single. "It's a much longer track than the others I've released so far. When I wrote it I took more freedom to explore a greater multitude of sounds. It's really really emotional, but also definitely one of the heavier tracks on the album."
On release, the album is bound to cement Lupa J's name as one of the country's most forward-thinking and inventive in this pop sphere, dissecting themes of breaking - and the subsequent healing that follows - as the album tracks on. "The feeling behind Swallow Me Whole is an intense desire for escape, for something unfamiliar and new - a way out of a painful reality that seemed impossible to navigate," she explains. "It's about the reckless and desperate feeling that came before I figured out how to take steps towards healing and actual happiness - wanting to throw myself into new and risky situations, to feel completely consumed by something - a person, emotion, desire, intoxication - anything that wasn't my reality."
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