Crucially (and appropriately) alongside this new sonic pallet, Bay’s second album has a thread running right through its heart that examines & embraces the notion of unity. From the gospel flecked R&B hopscotch jam ‘In My Head’, via the imploring raw beauty of the anthemic ‘Us’, and the breathless ticking golden transistor guitar pop of ‘Pink Lemonade’, this guiding sense of unity helps to navigate ‘Electric Light’’s expanded horizons in a strong coherent direction.
This lyrical focus adds a real sense of time and place to scenes Bay invokes within the songs, which is further heightened by a series of spoken word vignettes he scripted and helped to direct that are peppered between tracks, while an Allen Ginsberg poem is sampled into the album’s contemplative closer, ‘Slide’, to give a truly immersive quality to the whole record. This, coupled with Bay pushing his own musical boundaries makes ‘Electric Light’, a new, progressive yet open & welcoming experience. “It’s so interesting to see what people are doing with pop right now – and what I feel I can do with my own pop music, it’s exciting,” he smiles of the new places making this record has taken him.