Lorde

Lorde's work with Jim-E Stack on Virgin demonstrates that building a team can involve changing its centre. Their accounts of the sessions describe a productive exchange around rhythm, texture and emotional directness, with Stack's production helping give the songs a different physical character. Start with their interviews about the album and follow how experiments become decisions. Her inclusion rests on the deliberate choice of a collaborator suited to a particular phase, not on an assumption that a successful artist must keep the same partners forever.