Album Review: @melissageurts – maintenance mode

Melissa Geurts’ day job involves finding order in the potential chaos of everyday living, and new album maintenance mode achieves something similar in an emotional context.

Geurts is Group Executive Creative Director at Good Housekeeping, a job that no doubt involves finding structure but not order, making sense of things, not imposing meanings on them. Life is chaotic, and maintenance mode comes over as a way to find a path through that.

There is a lot of discussion at the moment about the resurgence of that particularly European form of electronica, most often found in trance, that is high on mood and emotion, designed to lift or shift the listener on an emotional level while being open to working in a club setting.

In terms of tempo at least, the opening duo of not because it’s romantic and temper temper (lumière menteuse) don’t overtly hit those notes, working as traditional songs, operating within dark electronic soundscapes and focused on feelings. Coming from a similar place as Madeline Goldstein, The Knife, and Yello, they mark the album’s successful mission to be electronic pop as well as being a departure from current expectations of what that means.

televised advertised and talk to a wall flirt with club culture while keeping close to the sound established by the first two songs on the LP, all the while rumbling with the ominous, glitchy bass lines that resonate in your soul.

The strings on rest/push/collapse and acid arpeggios of (i do) add distinctive flavours, never taking attention from Geurts’ vocals or the lyrics – and you’re left wondering whether to dance or cry. The title track is nominally the most conventional song, initially uplifting before transmuting into a sad banger, closely followed by mirage year, heartache to a disco beat.

Get ready to cry to great mother, because even as the tempo builds, your heart will slowly dissolve as the meaning of the song becomes clear. Melissa Geurts isn’t averse to making a dark banger, as she proves on i think i deleted it, and borrowed confidence – and that Euro feel sees out the album on the glitchy early-morning pop of still here though.

It’s underselling maintenance mode to call it a pop album or a dance album. You can certainly sing along to it, and Geurts applies her own take on a Euro-focused pop sensibility throughout the album. And you can most definitely dance to it, and much of the album would work within a club setting – depending on the club, queer clubs will certainly take to it.

As adventurous and exploratory as the thirteen songs on maintenance mode, it is a traditional album in the best way possible: a collection of songs that are a cohesive whole, the voice of an artist letting you glimpse her soul and see your own reflection there.

And maybe that is why she says of the album, “Everyone talks about the breakdown. Everyone talks about the healing. Nobody talks about the weird boring middle where you did all the work and now, you’re just… here. Waiting for your body to get the memo.” It’s her experience, but many of us are at varying points in the same process.

That places Melissa Geurts alongside KOMPROMAT, Robyn, ionnalee, and Geneva Jacuzzi, finding the art is inherent in the best pop music, sharing a part of themselves, making their music a sharing experience in the process. And even when the album ventures closer to pop, it’s more Haute & Freddy than BTS!

I like albums that send me into my thoughts, and particular timeframes. Geurts puts me back to those hours of stillness after the club has shut, your lover has left, and you don’t want the night to end just yet. You want to be where you are, not just in place and time, but also emotionally. And yes, other people will hear maintenance mode and have their own experiences with it, but you will always value that time you have with it.

maintenance mode was released on the 27th of March and can downloaded on Bandcamp and heard on Spotify and YouTube Music. A limited vinyl edition is available – check out @melissageurts on Instagram and TikTok for album and artist news.