• Slumberland/Memphis Industries

As a fan of Frankie Rose and the Outs, I was thrilled to receive news about the follow-up to their 2010 self-titled debut. At the time, the drummer/front woman cited Julee Cruise, Spacemen 3, Cocteau Twins, and the Cramps as inspirations. I can't say I heard the influence of Lux and Ivy anywhere amongst all the whispered words and heavenly harmonies, but those other references make sense. To my ears, the California psych-pop of Opal and Mazzy Star held greater sway over the New York foursome. Away from her previous outfits, Vivian Girls and Dum Dum Girls, Rose definitely prefers the hushed over the declarative.*

*She’s also done time in Crystal Stilts and Grass Widow.

• Slumberland/Memphis Industries

Though I’m glad she never added the word "Girls" to her band name—enough is enough—she’s now dropped the "Outs" portion, and will be issuing her second album, Interstellar, simply as Frankie Rose. Here's the full press release:

We were all knocked out by the Frankie Rose and the Outs album from 2010, the effortlessness of its gorgeous girl-pop mantras, the intimate immensity of its Spector-esque walls of reverb, the beauty of a song sung sweetly over the most graceful two-chord vamps. But are you ready for the new Frankie Rose?—her transformation into a wholly other kind of pop, the reverie and revelation of Interstellar, which floats free of its maker's history—time spent with Vivian Girls, Dum Dum Girls, Crystal Stilts, and creator of one of the most breathlessly compelling girl-pop albums of the past few years—and offers the listener something strangely other, as alien as it is familiar, as compelling as it is enchanting.

Talking with Frankie about the record, it's clear she was itching for a new start. The first big indication - production by Le Chev, remixer supreme (for Lemonade, Narcisse, Passion Pit, and Frankie's own "Candy"), an ensemble member of Fischerspooner, etc. "We recorded the record in a private studio dubbed The Thermometer Factory in Park Slope. I wanted this record to be totally different and in so doing I knew I had to work with someone who would lend fresh ideas and know how to make sounds that I wouldn't know how to make. I wanted to make a particular record and I knew Le Chev would be the one who could help me do it."

So, out with the reverb of the Frankie Rose and the Outs, and in with something altogether more glam, glittering, shivering. On Interstellar, Frankie takes the lessons learned with her debut album—like reverb as the holy route to pop-grandeur, scaling a wall of teenage tears—fully digests, and transfers those skills into the brave new world mapped out by 10 new songs. In its place is the confident swagger of a singer and auteur fully aware of how to build the simplest of pop moves into aching, full-blown melodramas, how to grab hold of an emotion and ride its darker waves. "I always have a big picture in mind," Frankie reflects. "I knew I wanted a HUGE sounding record. Big highs, big lows, and clean. There is no fuzz. I knew I wanted to make a streamlined, spacious record with big choruses that sometimes referenced '80s pop." But that referencing never swamps the melodies: this record isn't a retro trip. If anything, it liberates sounds familiar from that decade and gives them new context, breathes life into clay golems of sound that too often become basic, pre-set triggers.

On Interstellar, Frankie Rose goes epic. "Had We Had It" spins the sweetest sugar from chords that ascend into the firmament. "Gospel / Grace" rumbles with passion, a New Order-esque guitar figure leading into the choral depths mapped by the chorus. "Apples for the Sun" is breathtaking, with Frankie singing out across a lone piano, before a glorious web of voice and organ pirouettes into the air, an arbor of pleasure connecting the verse with its instrumental shadow, a coda that slowly slips from your view, before making the briefest, most tantalizing of returns. A lot of Interstellar seems to be about disappearing into, or finding and reveling in, this kind of imaginary zone, something Rose confirms: "The whole record is about dreaming of some 'other' place."

And as you drift into "The Fall," which floats out to sea on a cello riff that's pure Arthur Russell, you're ready to conquer those other places, too, to let Frankie Rose guide you out of the album's spell and land you back in the sensual world, slightly altered, adrift and in awe. How does it feel to feel? With Interstellar, your emotions come out so alive, your only escape is to dive right back in.

When an artist announces a new record, a single usually accompanies the press release, but not in this case. From the description above, I'm expecting something that sounds a little like Dum Dum Girls' Only in Dreams. Slumberland releases Interstellar on 2/21/12 (in the UK, Memphis Industries releases it on 3/19).