12 hours ago
11
From Boise, Idaho
Recommended if you like Devo, Chai, Remi Wolf
Up next Debut album Switcheroo released via Innovative Leisure on 27 June
The freshly hatched Gelli Haha is an old-school pop world-builder. The aesthetic world of her few singles so far recalls a kids’ soft-play centre, all bright primary colours and bouncy surfaces. Live, she fires bubble guns into the air, surrounded by caged inflatable sea creatures and red-clad backing dancers dressed as boxers. Her delightfully weird dance-pop draws from a toybox of vintage synths, and sounds as if it could be some rediscovered lost Euro new-wave pop curio, dabbling in Italo, sleazy chug and early electro.
It’s an immediately arresting proposition, but she’s also a slippery character, swerving across her debut album from the front-facing pop of Funny Music (which has some of Caroline Polachek’s DNA in its vocal ribboning) to more deranged tracks such as the tireless disco treadmill Tiramisu, or the acid-mangled Piss Artist’s account of getting wasted and peeing in a jar one night, a great addition to the annals of weird party girl curios.
Haha is the second go around for Idaho-born, Los Angeles-based musician Angel Abaya, who released an album of more standard indie fare in 2023. It was the result of several years grinding in the Boise music scene, as well as becoming programme director for a performing arts dance company. The latter prompted her to think bigger about the “Gelliverse” that she’s now realised since moving to LA. She made the forthcoming Switcheroo with Sean Guerin of the band De Lux and they along with her dancers form the Gelli Company. The idea, she says, is that “anyone can be a Gelli … it’s a fun, playful energy that anyone can embody.” The giddy Switcheroo makes it hard to resist. Laura Snapes
This week’s best new tracks
Jorja Smith – The Way I Love You
From the reference to Sheffield nightclub Niche in the video to the monster bass womps and Smith’s yearning vocal, this is bassline house nostalgia done perfectly. BBT
MØ – Lose Yourself
The Danish singer channels joy and self-preservation with this electro-pop bop about not losing yourself in a relationship, with Peter Hook-y bass interjections. Would massively go off in an 80s Italian disco. RK
Nilüfer Yanya – Cold Heart
No sooner was Yanya done touring 2024’s brilliant My Method Actor than she returned to the studio, yielding this crushed yet sensual song – twinkling guitar and pattering drum machine revealing surprise strings. LS
Tiana Major9 – Money
Over a melancholic bossa nova guitar figure, the British neo-soul singer casts her complex relationship with money as a toxic romance: “I’m high-key possessive / I’m super invested”. BBT
The Beths – Metal
New Zealand’s best jangle-poppers put a typically poetic spin on feeling betrayed by illness: “I’m a collaboration / Bacteria, carbon and light,” Elizabeth Stokes sings in that wildly endearing, hopeful voice. LS
Original Koffee – Koffee
GuiltyBeatz’s seductively brassy, breezy riddim (and great sound design) underscores the young Jamaican reggae star’s confident return after three years away. Now healthy, fed and balanced, he says there “ain’t nobody greater”. LS
MSPaint – Angel
Anyone excited by Turnstile’s return will also get a kick out of this from the Mississippi synth-punks, full of the kind of pained declarations of peak nu-metal. BBT
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