“I think this album is the afters, where you finally have a chance to have a cigarette with me,” says pop artist Sissy Misfit. It’s a fitting framing for her latest project, SISSY FXXXCKING MISFIT – the album is packed with the sort of confessional lyrics you’d only hear in the early hours, layered over the rattling bassline from the room next door.

Built on a love of abrasive punk and shaped by years spent cutting her teeth in Istanbul’s experimental underground, the album is a chaotic, maximalist crunch of electro-trash pop that has become distinct to Misfit’s sound. “It’s a very maximal album, but I’m a very maximal person,” she says.

Known for her blistering production and concept-driven past projects, Misfit takes a different approach on SISSY FXXXCKING MISFIT. “I’ve never produced this way. I’ve never sung this way on a record. I’ve never done anything like this before,” she says. The album is her most vulnerable to date, circling the things that define her – life in London, her Turkish roots, and the turbulent fallout of past relationships, most clearly on “GIRL IN BED.”

While it might take a moment to battle through the hardcore textures and scream vocals, what emerges is something far more exposed. “I think this is the most I reveal about myself, but it still has that fantasy element of I always want the listener to wonder about who I am. Is she telling the truth? Is she telling a lie? I want the lines between fiction and nonfiction to be blurred in the music.” It’s a through line in the project – the sense that you’re being let into the intimate spiel of an afters, even if you’re only overhearing it from the balcony below.

Here, Sissy Misfit talks us through her album’s essential listening playlist, take notes.

How would you describe the energy of the album in three words?

Sissy Misfit: Sissy. Fucking. Misfit. That’s it.

Tell me about the album visuals.

Sissy Misfit: It’s my favourite album cover I’ve ever done. It was such a battle, because the album is flagged as sexually explicit - even though my nipple says my name.

What music did you grow up listening to?

Sissy Misfit: I was a very classic goth metal kid, ever since I was like 12. I was very heavy on local Turkish metal bands. I never listened to electronic music at all.

Can you talk us through some tracks on the playlist? Firstly, David Guetta’s “Love Don’t Let Me Go.”

Sissy Misfit: It was one of the first electronic pop tracks I obsessed over. I would watch the music video over and over, and imagine I was the girl in it and be like ‘Oh my God, that’s my boyfriend.’ It was really good pop, really good EDM, and it stuck with me.

Hande Yener’s “Romeo”?

Sissy Misfit: It’s a track from a Turkish pop icon. She brought electro-pop to Turkey in a fashion-forward, feminine way, and she openly supported the queer community. Watching her videos and recreating them with my cousin was a breakthrough moment for me in understanding pop music and femininity.

Lil’ Kim’s “How Many Licks?”?

Sissy Misfit: Lil Kim is another huge inspiration to me; that’s where I got the idea for the album cover, the pop-art self-worship. That kind of vanity, sexy energy, that’s something I wanted to channel visually. I love how vulgar, hot, and aggressively sexual her music is, and I wanted to bring that energy into my art too.

How are you feeling as you release the project?

Sissy Misfit: I’ve never produced this way. I’ve never sung this way on a record. I’ve never done anything like this before. It’s exciting, but I’m also really anxious – it’s a career shift for me. My image has changed from quite dark to more playful. This is my strongest work yet, and I can’t wait to see how people react. I’m fine if it’s not liked, I just needed to make it.