Since 2010, Sky Ferreira has been buzzing around the indie-pop scene, dropping phenomenal singles, and postponing a full album. After her first EP As If! in 2011, Ferreira continues to experiment to find the right sound for her impending album, I’m Not Alright. In the meantime, Capitol Records has released another EP, Ghost. This time around, Ferreira seems to grow impatient with just being the ‘indie-synthpop girl’, and tries on a few different styles. Working with producers like Greg Kurstin, Jon Brion, and Ariel Rechtshaid, Sky shows her versatility and vocal prowess. Each of the five songs on Ghost is a masterpiece in its own regard, and even if the end result feels a bit too disjunct to be spectacular, it is held together by Ferreira’s ever-cool vocal performance. She’s reserved, calm, and tragic, whether she’s singing the 80’s synth heavy Everything Is Embarrassing or the 90’s grunge track (co-written with Shirley Manson of Garbage) Red Lips.

The title track, co-written and produced by Jon Brion, finds the middle of the EP feeling a bit flat. The chorus is very strong, but Brion’s production style seems limiting and the verses are awkwardly phrased. Everything Is Embarrassing, however, produced by Blood Orange‘s Dev Hynes and Ariel Rechtschaid, is powerful, evocative, and beautifully simple. The drum programming and over-saturated piano feel instantly nostalgic, while Sky’s vocals are particularly sullen and direct. There is always a pain in her voice that goes beyond the lyrics. Her lyrics (“Telling me that basically you’re not looking out for me”) are direct and stoic, but the hurt is impossible to cover up. But she does not sound broken, just resigned to her tragic fate, not unlike Lana Del Rey or Marina and the Diamonds.

But the highlight, for me, is Sad Dream. Co-written with Blake Mills and produced by Singer-Songwriter Cass McCombs, the song shows an expert sense of craft, varying the structure slightly throughout the song, falling into the chorus with little preparation, pulling the beat in and out in unusual places, and never letting the emotion bubble over to melodrama.

It would be easy to say that the flaw of Ghost is that it feels too inconsistent and unfocused, but I think it’s more important, before the release of her first album, to try different things and see what sticks. I think that I’m Not Alright will most likely air on the side of Everything Is Embarrassing, but the harder rock and gentler folk directions feel just as natural and powerful for Ferreira, and this EP is a good reference tool to keep her album in focus.