‘SOME FORM OF ART’: RISING INDIE STAR ISLA MAE IS SOME FORM OF GENIUS WITH HER NEW THOUGHT-PROVOKING THIRD EP
EP REVIEW | ISLA MAE – SOME FORM OF ART by Martha Munro
It seems that this 2025 summer was filled to the brim with exciting new music, constantly flying from every corner of our streaming platforms and festival stages. Now, as the cold of winter creeps in, so does a bit of music stagnancy – what’s next?
Well, here’s your answer: the brand new, genre-hopping, catharsis-cut EP from Cambridgeshire’s budding folk-pop favourite Isla Mae: Some Form of Art. Coming to your ears 7th November, this third EP is, if nothing else, a statement; as she rises up through the ranks, this superbly talented singer-songwriter will absolutely not be watered down to just one style, and instead uses the real and the imagined, her natural musicality, and current Leeds Conservatoire education in Actor Musician studies to curate a dynamic, decadent and deep body of work that sets her apart from those trailing along on the same-y indie-acoustic conveyor belt.
Opening track One Night Stand immediately sets an exciting new tone for Isla Mae, with a minor-key-infused acoustic strum line that oozes with intensity and passion from the get-go. This song is about guilt, more specifically its all-consuming nature, something so powerful it can feel like a real person – like waking up next to someone and feeling instant regret. This fictitious spin on a very real, raw emotion is embodied in Mae’s irresistible vocals, coming in low with their silky, syrupy texture and highly impressive runs to muse on the imposter-syndrome of coming of age: ‘Watch me now as I wine and dine / A proper adult now.’ The spotlight moment is definitely when the ironic repeating hook, ‘to be loved by you,’ comes in, along with a new, heavenly, yet haunting blanket of vocal layers; if there’s one thing you can always depend on Isla Mae to get right, it’s her harmonies. And even as she sticks to the classic pop-song structure, it never gets boring, with sultry syncopation and more harmony lines added in the second verse to really spice up the section. Then, we come to the bridge, worthy of Swiftie-level adoration in its emotive, atmospheric, captivating crescendo before coming back down to a powerful, echoing, emptier space with just Mae and her sporadic strums: overall, a corker of an opener.
And it only gets better with title track, Some Form of Art: a gorgeous, vulnerable, Lizzy-McAlpine-esque love song about allowing yourself to fall hard for someone, which Mae reimagines as a kind of artistic creation in itself. A very low impact, angelic synth note swings gently from one ear to the other before the airy acoustic strums come in, giving the immediate impression of a more toned-down track from boygenius. A certain power builds gradually throughout the song, but we still hear that tentative, gentle, vulnerable core coming through at every turn, perhaps suggesting that love, in all its hards and softs, is powerful. As well as coming in with some choir-like harmonies – all romantic cadences and fluttering layers – Mae sings through some astonishing lyrics throughout, a highlight being the very last section: ‘Not a Catholic / Til I’m in your arms / Would you baptise me / If you get the chance / And if I fall asleep / In the back of your car / Would you look at me / And know where you are.’
Following track and lead single What Love Will Do To You takes a much more pop-inspired path than anything Mae has released before, packed with angst, love, bitterness and jealousy: a high energy, diaristic peek into the heart-wrenching experience of watching a loved one walk into a situation with someone who’s clearly bad news. Where the other three songs on the EP were written, recorded and produced by Isla Mae alone in her bedroom – mastered by Ryan Davies at ‘RCD Audio’ – this one involved a few more talents; Dan Wilde deepened the sound with some electric guitar and bass, as well as producing along with Isla Mae, and Jack Lindsell founded the track on the drums, giving the song life and foundation with fun rhythmic flares. You can find a more detailed review of this single here.
And finally, closing the show is an absolutely breathtaking track, All The Things I’ve Never Had, about the trap of feeling like you should have more, and the attempt to break out of it and find gratitude. Mae imagines this through the lens of her younger self, who asks the older Isla how to do it all. With its soft, simple strumming patterns and emotional, existential themes (‘In a world of lonely people / Why do we get our chance?’), this track, like many of her others, has a Lucy Dacus air to it, similar to tracks like Lost Time and Triple Dog Dare in its introspective, incredibly vulnerable identity. And then there’s the harmonies – just indescribable. Throughout the song, these branch off and open up further into the beautiful musical landscape that Mae creates, gently winding down to the final notes as the EP comes to an immensely impactful end.
All in all, Some Form of Art is exactly what it says on the tin. From her jazzy, Dean lows to more pop-ish Rodrigo highs, Isla Mae takes us on a not only audibly, but conceptually enrapturing journey, all the while making it abundantly clear that she is not one to be pigeon-holed. The style-switches don’t sound even remotely experimental, as one might expect – they sound utterly accomplished, still maintaining that raw, emotional energy that’s gone into every work of Mae’s. It’s safe to say it’s an all-round winner and an exciting promise of what’s to come.
