Maren Morris has always dabbled in pop — “The Middle,” still one of the greatest laboratory-engineered hits of the 2010s — but in recent months she’s made a clean break with the country establishment. Her new EP Intermission, coming in August, is billed as a full-on pop move, and it leads off with a duet featuring one of the great pop songwriters of the past decade.

Morris teams up with Julia Michaels on “cut!” It’s a syncopated midtempo synth track with the kind of huge chorus that still plays well at radio. The lyrics are all about the struggle to keep up a put-together image. Morris elaborates:

“cut!” is about me holding myself together through the day, looking well-rested, not a hair out of place, not canceling any plans with friends because that’s how well I want you to think I’m doing. Perhaps those things are all true, but at night I let the mask slip and let myself scream or fall apart to let the steam out of the kettle. It’s a cathartic release that doesn’t require secrecy, but there are worldly expectations to keep it together despite your feelings. This song gives me permission to fall apart.

Listen below.

Intermission is out 8/2 via Columbia.