“A Kiss Goodbye”

Valerie Teicher, aka Tei Shi, traffics in lush music that glides between featherlight electronic-pop and moony ballads. On 2017’s Crawl Space, Teicher veered toward big synth pop songs to frame her development as an artist, splicing in samples of her childhood voice recorded on a tape deck to sweetly and effectively illustrate her past and present personalities in conversation. On “A Kiss Goodbye,” the first taste of her forthcoming follow-up, Teicher seems to have fully stepped into her own, brewing up a relaxed bossa nova confection centered on trusting your own intuition instead of someone else.

“A Kiss Goodbye” drifts by on a laid-back clave rhythm, glowing background synths, and Teicher’s bright, lilting falsetto. The sunny vibe buoys her lyrics, which find Teicher recuperating from a breakup and deciding to trust in herself in the future. At the bridge, the sumptuous instrumentation drops out in favor of an echoing synth line, reverberating as if underwater and anchoring her newfound sense of focus: “The love that I have in this heart of mine,” she coos, “I’m keeping it all to myself this time.” In Teicher’s hands, that useful mantra of self-reliance sounds like total bliss.