Alt-pop powerhouse Georgia Fields delivers the gold yet again, with her slow-building, fierce-hearted single Tigress – out on all streaming platforms Thursday 8 September.

Opening with a haunting howl and a vast, propulsive rhythm, Tigress blends punchy drum-pad samples with live kit, evoking a hint of buoyant 90s nostalgia amidst her now signature art-pop sound. Fields’ distinctive vocal oozes an understated charm – at once close and vulnerable, then rearing up on its hind legs in a powerfully commanding wail. Pulsing synths give way to a reverie of rippling Omnichord, as Fields beckons the listener to leave the familiarity of “the city and the street lights”, and head out into the wild terrain of new love.

Brimming with effortless, radio-ready hooks and an instantly singable chorus, Tigress has all the hallmarks of pure pop ascendancy. And yet it started as a humble tribute to two friends.

“I wrote Tigress as a gift for my mates Holly and Lauren – essentially this song is their love story”, the singer-songwriter explains. “At some point I started slipping the song into my live set, and I began to get comments pretty consistently about Tigress after each show. It felt like the story went beyond Holly and Lauren, and became something more transcendent: the vulnerability yet ferociousness of new love, and how that evokes a Tiger-hearted devotion.”

Tigress is the fourth single from Fields’ forthcoming album Hiraeth, out in November. Produced by drummer/multi-instrumentalist Josh Barber (Gretta Ray; Gotye), the record takes its title from a Welsh word with no direct translation, referring to a profound sense of nostalgia or grief for the lost places of your past. From themes of motherhood, infidelity and death, to rapturous love songs and anthems of healing – at its core, Hiraeth is an album about the many languages of longing.

Fields and producer Josh Barber played almost all the instruments across the album, with Jules Pascoe (Jazz Party; Husky) contributing bass guitar. And on Tigress, Fields enlisted the help of an old friend – in the from of her Casiotone MT-500.

“For years I’ve been touring with this very idiosyncratic, 90s Casio keyboard. It’s not much longer than an A3 sheet of paper and it’s a temperamental little beast, but I love it to pieces”, Fields laughs. “When I presented Tigress to Josh during the recording sessions, I was playing this really busy strumming pattern on my guitar, and there wasn’t a lot of room sonically for any other elements. Josh suggested we strip it right back to single strums – to lean into a sense of expansiveness. Then, to fill out the harmonic structure of the song, we brought in my trusty Casio with is menagerie of quirky 90s sounds”, she recalls. “I couldn’t stop smiling”.

Tigress is out on all streaming platforms on Thursday 8 September.

This project is supported by the Victorian Government through Creative Victoria, and the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.