For legal reasons, Ejecta, a mystical alien everywoman embodied by Leanne Macomber and given a soundtrack by producer Joel Ford, now goes by Young Ejecta. At the risk of sounding a little like the pair have wandered into the rap game, the new name works; "ejecta" is the word for the dust that falls after a volcano erupts or a meteorite strikes the earth. Fresh dust implies a recent impact, and so does the duo's new record, The Planet, which sees Macomber reeling from heartbreak and trauma.
The EP's near-title track "Your Planet" is an ode to Macomber's close friend who died at 20. To mourn him, she imagined him in his own, new world, looking fondly down at Earth like a lost Little Prince laughing among the stars. "You were the only one who ever loved me," she intones on the track, while Ford transitions from celestial organ to an outer space dance party bass line. In mourning there's also celebration, and "Your Planet" gently wraps its tendrils around both.
Ford, who's known for collaborating with Oneohtrix Point Never as half of Ford & Lopatin, enjoys testing the edges of tastefulness with cheap-sounding synth patches. Like the PC Music tricksters, he's interested in that porous boundary between cool and corny, and he oscillates all over it here. It works and it doesn't; "Your Planet" feels appropriately sci-fi and sad, and the blushing pop opener "Into Your Heart" pounds with all the adrenaline of a brand new crush. But the chirpy bass on "All Day" tends to meander without an endgame, cartoony and brash next to Macomber's delicate singing.
When Young Ejecta nail in a song, they nail it clean. "Into Your Heart" blooms with the best of them as Macomber's long melodic phrases spiral out of the atmosphere, while Ford's club bass and drum beat rattle like a star fighter out of hell. "Is there any way I can dive into your heart?" wonders Macomber, her voice dry and double-tracked, unsheathed from the reverb that clouded Ejecta's debut Dominae. Ford's quaking backbeat compounds the question's anxiety. The stakes are high, and Young Ejecta swoops to meet them with grace.
Macomber emotes better without those effects, but her newly clean singing can feel at odds with Ford's harshly synthetic compositions. She's a subtle vocalist, giving a light touch to lyrics about lazy days spent masturbating on "Welcome to Love". When Ford's fake, fake strings enter the chorus, it muddies the effect. Macomber wraps self-deprecation, frustration, and pure yearning into the way she sings just a few words, and Ford struggles to match that complexity. The two musicians match well in terms of overall ethos, but at some points it feels like they just stopped listening to each other, and what should be otherworldly comes clunking to the ground.
