Whether you like it or not, the mid-2000s are back, their pungent odor hanging in the air like the stale Red Bull fumes in your hometown’s worst club. The 2006 dance mashup “Perfect (Exceeder),” by Dutch musician Mason and American rapper Princess Superstar, is trending on TikTok, thanks to its inclusion on the Saltburn soundtrack; Charli XCX’s new single sounds like it’s trying to resuscitate the legacy of British house duo Bodyrox and singer Luciana’s 2007 hit “Yeah Yeah”; and Kanye has reportedly hired disgraced American Apparel founder Dov Charney as the new CEO of Yeezy. Blane Muise, aka Shygirl, has been on this tip for a while, and her new EP, Club Shy, suggests that she’s more equipped than most to bring the sound back into the mainstream. It’s a fairly conventional set of club bangers done right: This is an alluring, nonchalant flex between albums that’s weird enough to drop in the hyperpop Discord, but satisfying enough to play at your next birthday party.
At 16 minutes, Club Shy is short, but it covers a lot of ground. Across the record, Muise cedes a lot of space to like-minded collaborators; much of the time, they emphasize her vaporous vocals, but there are a few scene-stealers in the mix. Empress Of, on a hot streak after memorable collaborations with Rina Sawayama and MUNA, sounds charged and sinuous on the stripped-back house jaunt “4eva,” practically upstaging Muise with a half-sung, half-rapped verse that’s charismatic and catchy. Irish musician Cosha adds earthiness to the EDM throwback “thicc,” her rich vocals surging over the breakneck big-room production.
These songs offer simple pleasures, but they’re not uncomplicated. “tell me,” a simmering deep house cut produced by Boys Noize, plays like a club track written from the point of view of your wallflower friend, all libidinous desire and desperation without physical payoff. On “thicc,” the promise of a club hookup isn’t all it’s cracked up to be; Muise flits between intensity and coolness, but the focus is always on her sense of introspection, rather than the passion of the moment. Once you move past the brash exterior, it’s clear that Shygirl’s music is powered by tension and ambiguity as much as it is by spine-tingling drops.
In this sense, Muise’s clearest antecedent isn’t necessarily Madonna or Róisín Murphy, two progenitors she’s cited as influences, but Katy B, another south London diva who tapped into the yearning potential of the city’s slinky underground club music. Club Shy, with its dual impulses towards confessionals and crowd-pleasers, often recalls Katy’s classic debut On a Mission, enough that you leave hoping there’s a Shygirl/Benga link-up on the horizon. Like Katy, Muise seems to understand that shyness and ravenous desire aren’t at all mutually exclusive: Tears might just look like sweat under flashing club lights.
On Club Shy, this feeling manifests most clearly on “mr useless,” a wistful breakup song made with British pop producer SG Lewis. Muise’s vocals are placed front-and-center here, unlike the rest of EP. If you took away the slick electro house production, it would sound more like a feisty life-after-love ballad: “I’m the best I ever been and I’ll ever be,” she sings with a shrug. Of course, were it actually a ballad, it would be the defining moment of this record, but Muise is smart enough not to give Mr. Useless so much space. Instead, on Club Shy, he becomes fodder for the smokers’ area—a little extra energy to burn up on the dancefloor.
