REVIEW: Both the Player and the Poet, Phoebe Go Releases Debut EP ‘Player’

Q&AMusic

Oct 28

☆ By Sophie Severs ☆

NOT EVERYONE IS ABLE TO NAVIGATE THROUGH GROWING PAINS AS ELEGANTLY AS PHOEBE GO — This Australian singer-songwriter maneuvers through life with unfettered authenticity and grace, bringing forth her cathartic melodies to act as a beacon of light for those who are lost.

Phoebe Go’s debut EP, Player, released today, is a thorough case study that the musician carefully conducted upon the machinations of her own psyche. Phoebe Go is both the scrutinizer and the scrutinized, placing her emotions under the white hot rays of the interrogation lamp.

Player marks the beginning of Phoebe Go’s solo career, but is by no means her first rodeo. The singer-songwriter is practically a music industry veteran at this point in her career — she has been working within the industry since she was 15 years old, first in the punchy indie band Snakadaktal and then as a member of the whimsical psychedelic-pop duo, Two People before embarking on her time as an independent artist.

Now is a good time for Phoebe Go to completely reinvent herself. Emerging from the other side of quarantine, Phoebe Go is more than ready to share the newly developed self that she has excavated, presenting it within five tracks of lush and enchanting indie haze.

Fittingly, a deep sense of introspection is positioned right at the center of this release. Melancholic reverie reigns dominant; Phoebe Go broods over the emotions that have been bogging her down, trying to curate a project to clearly extrapolate her past self from her new beginnings, simultaneously differentiating this opus from her previous discography.

Phoebe Go undoubtedly succeeds in both aforementioned endeavors. A fresh and mellow indie-folk sound paired with her rich vocals that melt like molasses over intricate arrangements present a brand new Phoebe Go.

Raw, tender, and strikingly authentic, Player details the singer-songwriter’s at times tumultuous inner reckoning. Phoebe Go ushers all of her inhibitions to the surface, luring them out of the murky depths of her mind and spilling them into her songs.

Pairing difficult emotional subjects with silvery acoustic melodies, Phoebe Go sings of a life rife with confusion, her tone marked by the overarching fear of the strength of her emotions. She engages in an almost incessant conflict with the thoughts swirling around her mind, her poetic lyricism keeping her gridlocked in a whirlwind of contradictions.

This inner confusion has manifested itself in the way Phoebe Go interacts with others in her life, affecting her relationships with those she loves. An omnipresent sense of anxiety cuts through her subconscious, a pattern that is perhaps most apparent in the EP’s second track, “The Kid.” Even when faced with a good thing, the human mind finds a way to worry about losing it. Phoebe Go sings, “Truth is I think you met me at my best / under the table, now I'm scared to death,” her thoughts already beginning to spiral at the implications that come with confessing strong feelings toward someone.

And thus, Phoebe Go keeps her lips sealed, as she confesses: “I got a handful of hope / But the voice in my head / Is still tying me up / with every word unsaid / I wanna hand it to ya / But my lace caught on the fence / Was it more than / just a loose end.” She sings these words knowing perfectly well that if she were to admit her feelings, the true depth of her devotion would soon burst like water roaring out of an overflowing dam, finding that it’s better to ignore them than to go out on a limb and confess her love.

After experiencing various heartbreaks throughout her life, Phoebe Go likely began to feel as though her heart was in a perpetual state of disrepair. Battered and bruised but with a heart still beating, she has persevered through every trial and tribulation, with her music acting as a testament to her strength. Perhaps better than any other track on the EP, “Hey” demonstrates Phoebe Go’s capacity for processing grief and the ability to emerge from the other side in one piece.

Life just isn’t fair, and Phoebe Go acknowledges it, singing, “I get mad about what I can’t have / And I hate it that I’m like that” before realizing that sometimes the best course of action is to sit within this discomfort and let life play out on its own. “Stopped looking for the last escape / When I realized there were no gates,” she continued. And though her heart might be aching all the while, Phoebe Go insists: “I still shine from time to time.”

Yet, even when Phoebe Go lets herself be enveloped by love, she is not quite happy. Within the span of this EP, she poses the question of, Is it enough to be loved but not listened to? Within the somber wavelengths of “Be the Player Not the Poet,” Phoebe Go laments over a relationship in which she is continually taken for granted. “But who am I to expect you to care / When I'm paying you to sit on the phone,” she sings, mulling over the feeling of having already lost someone before the end has even occurred. After all, Phoebe Go believes everything would have been easier if she had just kept everything inside, as she longs to do in “We Don’t Talk,” a hazy percussion-driven track.

Within the dreamy melody, she states, “I’ve been feeling some of the shit I don’t believe in,” and later on confesses that she’d “rather run the other way than come last.” But even if Phoebe Go does run far away to protect her mind, notes of melancholy follow her like a shadow.

“Birthday” brings the EP to a hopeful close, providing a recap of all of the themes Phoebe Go has imbued into this project. The track is a breaking point for Phoebe Go, in which she decides to let go of her intrepidations and take a chance — so what if she is to get hurt? So what if this relationship might end in heartbreak? She comes to terms with the fact that she is the only one holding herself back, singing, “I don’t wanna start to feel / Like there’s something I forgot / I don’t wanna retrace my steps / Until I find my heart / Gripping on to the door frame / Like a kid on his first day.”

No, instead, she wishes to immerse herself in the unknown, embracing any pain that might come with taking a leap of faith: “It only happens once / And I just wanna waste it.”

Marked by a spirit of perseverance, Phoebe Go’s emotionally-charged Player is a love letter to hope and a sonic exploration of optimism in the face of adversity. Phoebe Go guides listeners through these muddled headspaces with untempered courage, boldly charting the path to clarity with every note she plays.

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