Nite Jewel recently released Liquid Cool, her first new album since 2012’s One Second of Love. While doing a site takeover with Gorilla vs Bear on release day, Nite Jewel shared a demo from Liquid Cool titled “I Fell In Love With My Face” saying, “a silly but sincere track that couldn’t find it’s way to the album.”

Last January, the pieces started falling into place. “I put all my gear—including my 8 track—in a walk-in closet,” Gonzalez says. “ I had left my label and was back in my element. I felt like I had found my identity again.” She was independent, free from authority, and able to regain creative control.

The end result is Liquid Cool, a collection of nine songs produced and performed entirely by Nite Jewel. The record explores the theme of aloneness in a crowded and disconnected world. On “Over the Weekend,” Gonzalez aims for a kind of skeletal, kinetic intrigue that unspools into an of-the-moment rallying cry; “Boo Hoo” provides a danceable groove underscoring a tearful refrain; “Kiss the Screen” sounds like the best date you had in high school if it had taken place on Mars. “I felt like I was trying to talk to my audience, but couldn’t be heard,” she says. “There were barriers like money and bureaucracy.” Liquid Cool examines that lack of connection, and does so in intoxicating fashion.

Liquid Cool is now out via Gloriette Records, Nite Jewel’s own imprint on which she released her debut. Music is usually an act of world building, creating a new plane on which an artist can exist; Liquid Cool is about stripping away the pieces of our own lives until we can really see one another again.