LA based Joy Downer is ready to take on the world with her dream pop debut

Everything within is wrapped in a delicate, celestial wispiness, the perfect soundtrack for a late-night dance party when you can barely keep your eyes open. Having released her debut EP Radio Dreamer in 2017 and had her music synced across adverts and series' by Netflix, this record has been a long-time coming for the Los Angeles based songwriter.

Comprised of just nine tracks, everything included is positioned to feed into the overarching mood of nostalgia. This is an album about looking back on your teenage years with all their ebbs and flows and finding a fondness within it all. First written at age seventeen about a high-school boyfriend, "A Song You'd Never Want to Hear" includes the tentative, almost tender refrain of "I still don't know why I didn't let you let me go". The high-school boyfriend in question suggested she sell the track to 'a real singer, like Britney Spears' after he heard an early version of the song – luckily for us, Downer decided to keep hold of it. It's a highlight of the record, catching the light in all the right ways as it explores the kind of dead-end relationships typical of adolescence. In contrast, the moody "Getaway Car" sees Downer searching for a change of scenery as she matches her vocal timbre to the music surrounding her, resulting in a murky, film-noir indebted track. It's a smoke and mirrors track which brings to mind not just people fleeing the scene but also alien abductions in the choice of sounds included – this is undoubtedly a record indebted to the sonics and aesthetics of the '80s.

It's a collection of incredibly polished tracks – it makes you wish that at least one track was a full-blown pop-song, reaching for those adrenaline rush melodies rather than sitting comfortably in its groove throughout. It's a solid debut and one that leaves a lot of avenues open for where Downer's music could be taken next – as she sings on "Go": "I was inside a dream / something's awakened me / I can't go back now," she's fresh out of a dream and ready to take on the world.