Fousheé Exposes Vulnerable Core of Home in Third Album, ‘Pointy Heights’
Fousheé has never been a stranger to experimenting with versatile worlds of genre and style; her debut album, Time Machine, spins a contemporary R&B sound with glitchy trap elements, while her sophomore album, softCORE, explores the musical dichotomy of ethereal synth-pop and abrasive punk rock. However, her latest album returns to the very beginning of the roots of Fousheé, investigating the innermost essence of who she is as a person. Pointy Heights, her third studio album, ponders on what home really is: a place? A person? A feeling? Whatever definition of home one resonates with, Fousheé displays fluttering whispers of the truth of belonging throughout the entirety of Pointy Heights.
Listeners are immediately immersed into the suave sonic community of this record in the opening track, “Birds, Bees.” Featuring silky production from Steve Lacy, this song centers its sound around a funky beat that we hear dancing alongside an airy wind instrument’s delicate melody. Fousheé sings about the remnants of love within nostalgia, recalling a moment when she “seen you in the old café / Scribbling on a journal page / First time I called it serendipity / But today we’ll call it fate.” Through “Birds, Bees,” home and love are established as an intertwined unit that one always seems to loop back around to.
The album then switches to “Do You Have a Soul,” one of the strongest musical and lyrical highlights throughout the entirety of Pointy Heights. The production lights up with a lustrous disco groove alongside blurts of otherworldly synth plucks that glisten like the brightest constellations in the sky. Fousheé also stuns with the vocals on the track, projecting a tender and floaty warmth that only heightens the transcendental experience of the track. The song perfectly summarizes itself when Fousheé asks, “What if the moon’s a disco ball I’m gonna dance all night long / Do you have a soul? / In your body, in your body, in your body.” With souls or not, “Do you have a soul?” could turn even the most silent crowd into an energetic and unified celebration of movement and togetherness.
The diverse exploration of genres in Pointy Heights is highly commendable. While each song brings something entirely unique to the table, they are only strengthened when in dialogue with one another, inviting listeners in to share the experience of a harmonized home with Fousheé. The distorted reverb on the guitar in “100 Bux” adds a gritty tinge to the album that feels reminiscent of the iconic rock edge from softCORE. “Rice & Peas” places listeners right into the 80s and instills a sense of hopefulness akin to a protagonist from a coming-of-age film from the era. Fousheé’s cultivation of songs in Pointy Heights is intentional yet liberating; through each piece of the puzzle, she communicates both the conscious and unconscious feelings of what it means to love and to feel like one truly belongs.
In “Still Around,” Fousheé eloquently expresses the mutual exchange of pride in relationship to home, singing, “I wanna be your pride and joy / I wanna be your light, and I’ll sure show you the way / I’ll give you peace of mind, I’ll make sure you’re okay / I wanna be your pride if you’re still around”. Home makes us want to live up to expectations, but it also provides us with the skills to succeed and to turn the beauties of the past into the best parts of the present. She goes on to portray the loss of the abundance of love and homeliness as “the biggest hurdle I’ve had / But to love is so much greater than to have.” Revealed in a post on her Instagram, this track undoubtedly connects to her relationship with her grandfather Pointy and the Jamaican town of Pointy Heights, from which the album finds its name. In this same post, she explains how “this album is dedicated to him, the fam & the community.” Fousheé shows through her vulnerability in “Still Around” that home can be a memory of our youth and our upbringing that has turned us into who we are today.
In Pointy Heights, Fousheé proves that home can hold a wide variety of complex meanings for people, encouraging listeners to challenge their definitions of the word itself and fully appreciate what it means to embrace the most genuine senses of belonging and love within their lives. In Fousheé’s mind, her latest album is “to be lived in & grown with / no features, no writers / just a tree and it’s the roots / showing you who I am / by showing you where I come from / I hope you see a little of you in this.” Home defines us, and in a way, we can be our own home. Pointy Heights serves to proclaim home as something that forever emanates from us and something to share with the world when we break down our walls and find deeper connections in our lives; Pointy Heights is Fousheé putting her home on display for everyone else to find themselves within, a masterful love-letter that speaks to the magic of growing and changing alongside, and outside of, where we come from.
Listen to Pointy Heights below.