Ella Mai: "There Goes My Heart"

"London R&B singer Ella Mai broke out in 2018 with the sleeper hit "Boo'd Up," which employed its chorus, mimicking a heartbeat, to channel the kind of easygoing romance that puts a skip in your step. "There Goes My Heart," a highlight from her new album, Do You Still Love Me?, captures the more demanding somatic rhythms of a love that brings your defenses crashing down."

"This sort of muted, adult-contemporary introspection is hardly out of Mai's comfort zone, but then a drum fill crashes into the mix and sends the song momentarily reeling, hinting at a pent-up passion she desperately wants to contain. Mai sings in a fake-aloof tone about not wanting to get her hopes up, but the beat's rickety construction-808s, snaps, live drums, and an urgently ticking clock-undermines her facade."

Ella Mai shifts from the heartbeat-mimicking chorus of "Boo'd Up" to a more fraught physical rhythm in "There Goes My Heart." The track starts as a Mustard piano-and-fingersnaps ballad with Mai alternating between icing her lover out and wanting closeness. A sudden drum fill destabilizes the arrangement and suggests contained passion. The beat layers 808s, snaps, live drums, and an urgent ticking clock that undermines her faux-aloof delivery. Lyrics insist on restraint while high notes expose trembling vulnerability, and the song closes with resignation to an inevitable chemistry.

Read at Pitchfork