Combine them with Johnson’s obsession with studio craft and we have an album that’s less of a sophomoric follow-up and more of a bonafide pop classic.

The Golden Echo isn’t a perfect album, but it contains more than a few moments of pop perfection. The similarity to Prince in a track like Madhouse is almost scandalous, but is there anything to be gained by castigating someone for taking cues from His Royal Badness? Would that all contemporary pop could be so wildly danceable. Miracle is so unapologetically disco it borders on parody, while Madhouse is a tight, carefully crafted amalgam of Prince, Janet Jackson and the entire Ghostbusters soundtrack. Track after track is knowingly crammed with joyful pop tropes. Meanwhile, for someone labelled a jazz-pop singer, “I don’t want to die / Without knowing what it’s like / To move inside you / The flesh and bone in me / Suddenly it feels so good” is the best R&B lyric since Bey declared her intention to fill the tub halfway and ride it with her surfboard. His fingerprints are particularly visible on the abrupt, synth-laden chorus of opener Teen Heat, more or less setting the tone for the rest of the album. Johnson has a mischievous love of the surprise, ear-popping wall of sound – a task to which she set producer Rich Costey on almost every track. Moments later the rising R&B chant in Goldmine wrongfoots us again, and the departure from the art-pop stereotype is all but complete. The track opens with a child’s laughter, giving way to swelling woah-woah vocals that tumble towards that soaring, shamelessly moreish chorus. It seems effortless, but you get the sense that Johnson knows exactly what she’s doing.

Carolina cleanses the palette with a barrage of etherial harmonies and rippling arpeggiated hooks, cramming an implausible amount of sunshine into four, short, ecstatic minutes.

Kimbra album covers