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Molly Nilsson is by this point in time a DIY veteran. The Swedish-born, Berlin-based singer has been independently releasing her self-produced material through her own label Dark Skies Association since 2008 and through Night School Records since 2013. Her latest offering, Zenith, is her sixth full-length album. The album is characterized by a distinctly lo-fi aesthetic, carried along by dreamy synths and foggy pop melodies. It opens with the glimmering and halcyon The Only Planet, a tone that is carried through into the subsequent song 1995. 1995 is fantastically arresting, with a brilliantly placed saxophone line and its wryly disillusioned lyrics delivered in Nilsson’s characteristic deadpan drawl: “Windows 95/You’re long gone but I’m still alive/I’ve gone so far, not even knowing how/I suppose the world is so much smaller now”. The twentieth anniversary of Windows 95 was celebrated just last month, and the track itself is a nostalgic musical presentation of the optimism that was felt regarding the place of technology in the future when that operating system launched. We now of course live in a tech-saturated society, and Nilsson seems to be presenting her disgust with the place we’ve given computers in our society. However, she quickly turns this interpretation on its head (or at least adds another layer of depth) by singing “Windows 95/ is only a metaphor for what I feel inside”.

The album really hits its stride in its middle part, Bunny Club being the definite album highlight with its glacial synths that cascade into something that feels wonderfully grand in scope while still remaining intimate as the song progresses. Bunny Club is injected with a definite electro edge, and is matched in this regard by Mountain Time and Bus 194 (All There Is). These numbers are musically somewhat upbeat, and this offers a juxtaposition or even respite against Nilsson’s world-weary lyricism. Some might say that there are too many indie tropes and too much in the way of what could be termed “affectations” for Zenith to be a truly innovative album, but the whole thing feels so heartfelt that one cannot help but be enamoured.

Zenith is released on Night School Records and Dark Skies Association on September 25th, 2015.