Label: Dream Life Records
Released: 21st October 2022
A brief introductory track sees Pip Millett mockingly ask her listeners, “so, you think you know me?”. It’s repeated throughout, the kind of taunt that indicates that actually, you don’t know a thing yet. Don’t worry, though, you’ll learn a lot through the course of ‘When Everything Is Better, I’ll Let You Know’.
The 24-year-old’s debut album has been in demand for some time – yet, here she proves it was worth every second of the wait. A rich exploration of self and society, Pip Millett is at once ethereal and formidable. Her vocals are richly powerful, gliding through silky falsettos on ‘Walk Away’ or distorted as they are on ‘Slow’. In each form they take, they slither around the delicious beats with little effort, casting a hold over each track. It’s mesmerising.
Across the album, Pip repeatedly shuns fear and embraces independence, ownership and boundaries – she sits on the throne here, and no one else could overthrow her. ‘My Way’ revels in dark grooves to establish this fact; her vocals are at times anguished as she recounts her feelings but she takes ownership of that. It’s a goodbye to being afraid and an embrace of a new version of herself. It’s a rising from the ashes of a debut album, an acknowledgement of hard times past and a step towards growth.
Candid and yet protective, Pip’s soulful excavation of the self comes to a yearning head on ‘The Stage’ – it’s melancholic lifting of the curtains, an effort towards honesty. Whilst sonically soothing, her lyricism can be starkly affecting; this is the Pip she wants you to discover. Her control over how much she unveils is masterly, slickly moving between empress-like figure to transparent friend. Done to some of the most gorgeously fused production of the year, eventually you do know a lot about Pip Millett – enough to already be gasping for that follow-up album.
