In 2021, amid an ongoing global lockdown and the early stages of writing her sophomore record, Marie Ulven (known by her stage moniker Girl in Red) fell in love. The newfound romance transformed her life, imbuing each day with a sense of chaotic euphoria, and left her to grapple with an unavoidable truth: her next album would be a happy one.

“I definitely felt like, oh my god, people aren’t gonna like this because it’s not super depressing,” Marie tells Wonderland over a hiccuping Zoom line. She’s calling from interstate 81 on a six-hour drive from Boston, where she just kicked off her world tour, to Pennsylvania. At the time of our conversation, the album had been out less than a week, yet the fans lining the barricade know every word and have been reciting Marie’s new introspections on life and love as gospel. It’s been received instantly with open arms – something that surprised Marie, given the drastic shift in energy from her debut.

Emerging from the Bedroom Pop boom of the 2010’s, Marie built a dedicated fanbase through her careful musings on depression, underscored by a sombre, Indie-Pop sonic palette. So, when she felt compelled to explore joy in her music, there was initial doubt on how her fans would take it. “I was worried about it,” she laughs, able to find the humour now in post-release hindsight.

“I was kind of trying to force myself to write something that was sadder than it had to be.” Yet, the profound experience of falling in love infiltrated the music regardless of her initial fears, introducing an element of solace that had been absent from her more meditative musical output before.

I’M DOING IT AGAIN BABY! now exists as an audible documentation of those days, falling in love against the backdrop of global crisis. The night in question, an elongated summer evening in Oslo where the sun never quite dips below the horizon, is recounted in forensic detail on “A Night To Remember” – a track written in rose-tinted retrospect a year later. Elsewhere, on “Phantom Pain” she recounts the frenetic energy of early infatuation – the pain and chaos of longing for feelings to be reciprocated, and the fear of what will happen if they actually are. While love transformed her life and heavily informed her lyricism, it also permeated her creative process, shaking off some of the seriousness she’d placed great importance on prior.

“I realised that making sad music for the sake of it wasn’t authentic. That wasn’t what I had in me at the time,” she reflects. “I just wanted to do something because it’s fun, and it doesn’t need to be fucking important. I think when you stop over intellectualising stuff, it becomes more free. Being happy and being expressive about your happiness is also really vulnerable.”

To read the full interview, pre-order the Summer 2024 issue here.