Back in April, experimental pop artist Micachu performed a Boiler Room set in London. Skulking behind her was a woman in a hoodie having a little dance that I assumed was a friend, until she shyly picked up a mic and startled the room with the purest, rawest tone I’ve heard for time. That woman is an old school friend of Micachu, and her name is Tirzah; “I’m Not Dancing” is the Micachu-produced title track from her debut solo EP, and it possesses the same oomph that she exuded a few months back.

Just a two-minute slip of a song, “I’m Not Dancing”’s power lies in its precarious balance of grit and gleam. It’s the most skeletal of dance tracks—lean, springy bass, scruffy percussion, raggedy gasps for air—and then there’s Tirzah all up in your ear, singing in heartfelt couplets: “I’m not dancing, I’m fighting/I’m not shining, I’m burning/I’m not touching, I’m feeling.” If this was the early 1990s, those lines would’ve been screamed, diva-like, over pounding beats and a melodramatic piano melody. But “I’m Not Dancing” is a banger for our times: subtler, stealthier but no less ecstatic.

[from the I’m Not Dancing EP; out 08/05/13 via Greco-Roman]