“We toured a lot with the first album, bruises, and we were reinventing a lot of the songs live to make them heavier,” total tommy—aka Sydney-based musician Jess Holt—tells Apple Music. “When it came time to writing this record, I had live in mind, so it definitely got a lot heavier.” A grittier album than her debut, Trapezoid was, she says, influenced by “a lot of riot grrrl stuff” as well as the DIY local scene. Another key influence was film, as Holt began looking outside her own life for inspiration. The actor Winona Ryder is a recurring presence throughout the record, from the title of opening track “Girl, Interrupted” (a Ryder movie) to the song “Winona Forever” and its lyrics, “Red eye, watching Reality Bites.” “I did a massive deep dive,” Holt smiles. “She was my entry into starting to watch films.” Here, Holt explores the themes and sounds of Trapezoid, track by track. “Girl, Interrupted” “‘Girl, Interrupted’ feels like a good bridge between my previous stuff to now. It’s about getting stuck in that cycle where you want a dopamine hit all the time and a quick fix. We live in a world where we always need that thing instantly.” “Pretty Little Mouth” “That’s about my friend who was getting absolutely love bombed. I was chatting to her a lot on the phone and being like, ‘Tell me every little detail because I’m gonna write a song about this.’” “Trapezoid” “I’m really obsessed with symmetry and getting into this [idea] of off-kilter, which is me just trying to let go of perfectionism in general. So it was like, ‘Here are the things that you are, and you don’t have to force to change them because you’re an adult now. It’s who you are. So, stop trying to change yourself constantly.’” “Gutterball” “I wrote it with my wife. We were feeling misaligned. But then writing it together was this beautiful balance of understanding. It’s better than having a conversation. Halfway through, we were like, ‘This guitar is so out of tune, but let’s not fix it because it sounds sick. It would be so hard to recreate it. It just wouldn’t sound the same.’ There are a lot of slightly off-tune things in the record.” “Winona Forever” “I’d been away for probably six weeks. It was the end of the trip, and I had four hours to leave my hotel and go to the airport. So I called up my friends and was like, ‘Are you guys in the studio? Can we try and write a song in four hours?’ It’s just reminiscing about going away, how it was being away, and then excited to come home.” “City of Mannequins” “I was feeling really restless with Sydney. Sometimes the city gets a lot. It’s so fast and you realize everyone’s working for the man and there’s not much substance. I was looking at all the live music venues closing down and just being frustrated.” “Bloodshot” “I have this ability to compartmentalize things that are really hard. Then months later, I’m like, ‘That was really fucked.’ And it comes out in a song. I’d been in a bit of a songwriting rut, but something about that riff unlocked this memory.” “Nosedive” “I had a time where I was depressed and I was drinking a lot and was like, ‘Nothing matters.’ Just in a negative cycle. It’s about being a work in progress, but also trying to snap out of a bad mood and recognizing that your actions can impact other people. It’s not just about you and your bad mood. Get your shit together.” “Tearjerker” “I was in some bad patterns last year, because I’d been touring a lot and I was addicted to this adrenaline dopamine of touring. Then, when you stop and you go back to work in your day job, and everything’s quite normal, it gets quite monotonous. You get really depressed. Then when you’re not releasing for a few months or touring, you’re like, ‘Oh my god, I’m irrelevant.’ It affects you.” “Out of Frame” “A straight-up love song. Had to put one on the record. It was a missing mood sonically that the album needed, because a lot of it feels quite dark and dramatic.” “Tailgate” “I was going to a wedding and the Uber driver was a psychic. She kept looking at me in the rearview without saying anything. Then she turned around, we’re at the lights, and she just said all this crazy, concerning stuff about my family, completely unsolicited. I was trapped in this car with her for the next 20 minutes, and she just kept analyzing me. It was really scary. I was like, ‘I don’t want to hear this from you.’ But she kept proceeding. It really stuck with me.”