The L.A. singer and producer Georgia Anne Muldrow introduced Erykah Badu to the phrase “stay woke,” and was thusly the person who brought it into the public imagination. For Muldrow, the phrase not only connoted political awareness but also the need to carry on when you’re exhausted beyond your means. “Overload,” her new one-off single for Brainfeeder, offers a portrait of love as the incubator of resistance, the place where both of those definitions of “woke” are brought to life.

Muldrow finds peace in comfortable places: She cozies up to the kind of sumptuous and psychedelic R&B beat she forged with Madlib on 2012’s Seeds and offers gratitude for an all-consuming romantic love. “I’m on overload and overdrive/I’m overwhelmed,” she sings in the chorus, her voice punching through the syllables until she stretches into a final declaration of solidarity: “I built this lifetime trust up in you.” The giddiness of that romance is palpable. Anxious gusts of hi-hats blow through, a reminder of how draining love can be. But they’re outmatched by a warm keyboard line that wraps itself around her voice in the same way two people wrap themselves around one another after a long day. Here, she can give while she receives; “I’m there for you like air,” she coos near the song’s end. It’s a tender exchange that mirrors the political unity that’s sure to follow; after all, waking up is always easier when you do it in someone else’s arms.