Georgia seeks al fresco ecstasy on her new album, Euphoric

"Only when I'm dancing can I feel this free".

It's not just Madonna's best lyric, it's a mission statement for the entirety of pop music. And it's something Georgia knows a lot about.

The daughter of Leftfield's Neil Barnes, she was a toddler tripping over cables and samplers while he recorded the iconic British dance album Leftfield in their flat.

Later, she became a session drummer for Kae Tempest and Kwes, before striking out on her own as a solo artist.

In 2020, she released her second album Seeking Thrills, a joyful, amped-up dance record, crammed full of Robyn-esque pop melodies. Billed as "a hymn to British hedonism" it was nominated for a Mercury Prize - but its heady dancefloor rush was neutered by the pandemic.

Three years later, she's back with Euphoric, a more celestial, melodic take on her sound, that celebrates not just the return of clubbing, but the small moments of humanity that surround it: Getting ready with friends, making random connections in the queue, walking home in delirium as the "the horizon changes hue".

After creating her first two albums on her own, this time she's collaborated extensively with Vampire Weekend founder Rostam Batmanglij, who's previously worked with Haim, Frank Ocean and Clairo.

We caught up with the musician at last week's Latitude Festival to discuss how nature inspired the album, the importance of mistakes, and why Lana Del Ray is changing music.

Hi Georgia! I listened to the album on the way here and, honestly, it's the perfect motorway soundtrack.

Really? I'm so glad you said that because when I was making the record I thought it'd be great if people played it in their car, so that's really sweet!

What's your go-to album for a car journey?

In fact, I was just listening to it... The one I always put on is the first Air record, Moon Safari.

That's so weird, I listened to that last night.

No way! I find it the most relaxing, calming music. It was played a lot in my household in the 90s. It was like the album.

It just puts you into this kind of ethereal, calm state. I've listened to it on so many different roads around the world.

But should you be in an ethereal state when you're in charge of a car?

Right, that could be highly dangerous. I suppose if you're driving late, you want some Metallica to keep you going!

I guess this is leading to a question about the sound of the album. It feels like an open road, lots of space. What were you trying to capture when you made it?

Exactly that. Seeking Thrills was very heavily influenced by my times in the club, late at night, in quite a confined space. For this new record, I just felt like I wanted to climb a mountain, or get outside in nature, and see how that could affect my songwriting.

I made this record during lockdown - although it's not a "lockdown record" - and in my imagination, I was very much going to the ocean, the desert, the jungle.

How did you achieve that?

Not looking at my phone! I spent a lot of time listening to ethereal, contemplative music and meditating and imagining I was somewhere else.

I wanted to feel like a classic songwriter, you know? Like Joni Mitchell going to Greece and then writing Blue ... Although I don't want to give any sort of expectation that that's what I've made!

How did you end up working with Rostam?

I was in LA playing a showcase and we'd been talking over Instagram, so I messaged him and said, "Hey, I've got a day off. Can I come over and make some music with you?"

And on that first day, within the first hour, we wrote It's Euphoric. That was in 2019.

Really, so that song was written before Seeking Thrills even came out?

Yeah, everything you hear on that single is what we did in that hour. Even the vocal. I couldn't redo the vocal when it came to the actual recording, there was just something very innocent about it that I couldn't imitate. We were like, "Bugger it. Leave it on".

I assumed that song was about escaping the pandemic - but you didn't even know the word Covid at that point.

Exactly. It predates all of that. And actually, using the word euphoric to sum up the album, that seed was already sown in 2019.

Did you worry the song might go stale if you held it back too long?

No, because it's quite a simple song. As you said, there's a lot of space in the mix, and that was very intentional - and quite hard work in modern-day pop music because everything is very compressed. We went the opposite way, like, "How childlike can we make it, but still sound up to date?"

I wanted to ask about your drums on Give It Up For Love. The beat is very close to the classic Clyde Stubblefield / James Brown Funky Drummer breakbeat.

It is.

Did you play it live?

Yes!

Wow... There aren't many drummers who could pull that off.

It was really, really difficult!

So, all the drums on this new record are live, and we went to this wicked old Capitol Records studio in LA, because we wanted the aesthetic of that James Brown breakbeat. That studio is amazing - nothing has changed since it was built, so has all this fab 60s furniture, and vintage microphones and a mixing desk with massive levers.

And how many takes did you need?

Oh God. I have to say it wasn't my finest hour of playing the drums. I felt very embarrassed. By the end, Rostam was like, "We'll slice it all together!"

A lot of the album is about finding escape and release, but in Some Things You'll Never Know, you also talk about how anxiety can stop you from leaving the house. Is that a new thing for you?

No, it's where I've been for a long time. I think a lot of my generation are terribly, terribly anxious. It's almost like its own pandemic, really.

Writing that song, I was trying to get this sense of, "I want to have fun. I'm looking at people having fun constantly on social media, but I can't bring myself to go out". I know in the grand scheme of things it's not a massive deal, but a lot of my generation are going through that.

I know, I have to build myself up before a night out.

I think social skills have been massively lost. I mean, especially the people who went through lockdown when they were 16 and 17. Those are such crucial moments, formative moments for socialising and experiencing things. I felt so sorry for them.

Is that why a big theme of the album is about human connection?

Yeah, I wanted it to feel optimistic. The world is actually a really beautiful place when you go out there.

So What, which closes the album, really captures that feeling.

Thanks. I wrote that song with Justin Parker, who wrote Video Games for Lana Del Rey, so it was like going in with one of my heroes. I was very nervous about it.

Did you arrive with reams of ideas. "Here's an amazing melody I wrote?"

I did! I was like, "Maybe I'll impress him and this will be the new Video Games". And actually, it was really different to that. We were both in quite a reflective mood, almost re-evaluating who we were. Then he came up with the beginning chord sequence and then I just got on the mic sang "So What?"

From there, we got to this idea that making mistakes is part of being human, and it doesn't matter when you get it wrong.

I remember Michael Stipe saying something like, "Mistakes make the art". Like, playing the wrong chord can give you fresh inspiration. Have you any instances of that?

Oh yes, loads. Loads of mistakes. The whole album's a mistake.

There's the headline!

"The whole album is one big mistake!"

How do you feel now that it's coming out? Is the third album different?

It still feels the same. I'm nervous, I can't listen to it, I'm always thinking of how can I do things differently. That's the mind-set I'm in right now, which I suppose is handy because it means I'm ready to move on to the next project.

And is it like last time? Is the title track for album four already written?

Yes, it is. Or, at least, I've got some ideas.