Kevin Bronson on July 15th, 2016

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Twenty-two-year-old Angie Miller had a musical epiphany last year. The singer-songwriter and 2013 “American Idol” alum sought to move away from the straight-ahead pop that characterized her first solo releases. “I was craving more creativity in my music,” she says. “I wanted to experiment more and create a sound of my own.” Adopting the name Zealyn, she began working with producer Aaron Marsh (of the rock band Copeland) in his Florida studio to move in a more avant-pop direction. The result is Zealyn’s debut EP “Limbic System” (named for the mass of nerves your brain that make you all emo, right?), her seven-song new start. Marsh lends his vocals to the single “Overwhelmed,” which suggests that it takes two to make sense of things, and another Floridian, JMR, chimes in on the title track, but the highlight is probably “Sleep On It,” which finds the L.A.-based singer un-seducing (“Let’s sleep on it another night”) over a lush, tremulous soundscape predictably (in the genre) interrupted by stuttering robo-vox. The EP’s closer is the piano ballad “Faster Now,” which is closer to the material on her 2014 EP. But overall it’s clear she’s moved on.

||| Stream: “Sleep On It” and “Overwhelmed” (or the whole EP here)

||| Live: Zealyn performs July 31 at the Bootleg Theater along with Madeline Spooner and WRENN. Tickets. She also plays Aug. 31 at the Hotel Café.