Charli XCX’s music sounds best blasted in the sweat-and-vodka-soaked back rooms of underground clubs and seedy bars, but she hasn’t had much time for partying lately. The 27-year-old singer-songwriter released her new album Charli this month and launched the accompanying sold-out tour across Europe and North America. Yet sitting across from me in her midtown Manhattan hotel room, Charli—a self-proclaimed workaholic—is talking about the musical follow-up she already has in the works.

“I just feel ready to do something drastic, and I’ve been properly thinking and making stuff the past couple of months,” Charli says, realizing she might be getting too far ahead of herself. “But we won’t get into that right now!”

Right now, we’re discussing Charli, her third studio album of thrilling and forward-thinking pop, and her first major-label release in five years. After collaborating with Icona Pop on the 2013 hit “I Love It,” Charli became pop’s go-to songwriter for superstars like Shawn Mendes, Selena Gomez, and Camila Cabello. While the one-two punch of “Boom Clap” and “Fancy” established Charli as a mainstream hitmaker, the transition from her bubblegum roots to the glitchy, experimental production of recent mixtapes and one-off singles have turned her into a modern pop savant.

On Charli, the future of the genre has never looked brighter. Instead of smoothing her edges to fit comfortably into any pre-established pop world, she’s built her own. She also invited 13 of her contemporaries, including Lizzo, HAIM, and Troye Sivan, along for the ride. Vogue caught up with Charli to talk about it all.

How did Charli come into existence?

Originally, I thought I’d make a third mixtape because I wanted to make a trilogy after Number One Angel and Pop 2. But in November, I did a week of recording with A.G. Cooke, my longtime collaborator. We had a few ideas, and I was like, “I feel like we should do an album. It feels like the time, and it feels like the most confident I’ve been in my songwriting.” Also, people didn’t seem to really expect it from us because I’d denounced the album [Charli hasn’t made an album since 2014], so, like, what better time to just do a fucking album?