Alice Mary‘s new single “Too Much” is an intricate, thoughtful take on retro electro-pop and electro-funk. It’s a song about sex and anxiety – two people “feeling around in the dark, trying to let each other in but not really knowing how.”

The song is Prince to the max. The groove is straight out of “Kiss,” and Mary‘s vocals carry an infectious confidence not unlike Prince‘s legendary charisma. The song is funky, bubbly, sexy, unabashedly, joylessly retro, but also tastefully modernized. The engineering, especially, sounds cutting edge. Everything is round and punchy. The vocals shine through crisp and catchy, the bass is all plump, groovy fills, the drums all snappy, saturated funk. It’s got all the joy of the best of 80s electro-funk, but it brings this infectious sound to a darker, more thoughtful place.

Alice says of “Too Much” “it’s about desire and wondering if wanting too much can kill you. It’s about seeing if you can just bear to hang around long enough to see what happens. And how embarrassing it is to let people know you.” There’s something a bit ironic about sticking this dark subtext in a hip-shaking, funky as all hell pop song. It feels thematically relevant though – the song’s groove compels you as powerfully as desire compels its characters.

Mary brings a really impressive level of straight up technical chops to “Too Much.” She has quite a diverse musical background – she studied classical music and cut her teeth as a techno producer – and it’s clear she knows her stuff. She makes some really intricate compositional choices on “Too Much.” Her vocal melodies cut an angular path across the track, and the drums, played by Alex Walker, sit in this really creative, swung pocket. On some tracks this kind of technical intricacy can start to feel a little too intellectual. That is not at all the case on “Too Much.” It’s like the whole track is run through Alice Mary‘s wit and personality, and comes out the other side catchy, relatable, and downright dancy.

“Too Much” is Alice Mary‘s first single since her 2017 EP I Am Here.