Hannah Diamond - Perfect Picture

Hannah Diamond has always favoured clarity. The poster child for the original hyperpop ambassadors, art collective PC Music, Hannah swirls through the crystal clear production and raving-but-minimalist electronic pop that the label came to represent. For years, her concept releases straddled the commerciality of pop with a sort of transparent irony: in embracing its building blocks at their most deconstructed and exaggerated – a breaking of the fourth wall - she highlights the glistening beauty of all that pop can be. But behind the curtain is an earnest edge, a wistful melancholia and an unbreakable hope. On second record ‘Perfect Picture’, this vulnerability steps into centre stage. ‘Perfect Picture’ paints the image of Hannah’s interior as snapshots of girlhood, daydreams of stardom, admiration and critique of fame, and a loneliness masked only by fandom. Within the staple, nostalgic, ‘00s bedroomcore she repopularised, Hannah Diamond becomes that poster girl. All the while, her pastel pink pop is at its best yet - cinematic, crystalline, and infatuating, like music has never been so clear and sharp, with intricacies made newly visible. As ever, her gut-wrenching irony is present: in embracing bigger, braver pop hooks as if her survival depends on it. ‘Perfect Picture’ is the pinnacle of today’s hyperpop yet steers away from its once abrasive nature towards a well-rounded, rebooted version: one where all that Hannah is and can be is indeed made picture perfect.