Hometown: Los Angeles.
The lineup: Cecilia Della Peruti (vocals, guitar).
The background: Gothic Tropic aren’t, as the name might suggest, the Mission meets Vampire Weekend. And they’re not a “they” but a “she”: 27-year-old New Jersey-born Italian-American Cecilia Della Peruti, with a little help on bass, drums and keyboards from some friends and her producer Todd Dahlhoff, who has given her latest songs a pop polish and commercial sheen that will make you seriously question their absence from recent ones to watch lists. If you like Fleetwood Mac and Blondie, you’ll want to check out Fast or Feast, Gothic Tropic’s debut album. Each of the four tracks we’ve heard from it strives to be more infectious and insistent than the last. And each is an object lesson in shiny pop concision, with some of the angular funkiness of peak-period (1978-80) Talking Heads and an idiosyncratic, sensual throb that nods to current R&B. Remember Haim when they first emerged amid wild claims that they were like Stevie Nicks in a studio with Timbaland? That.
“Who are my pop heroes?” muses Della Peruti, taking a break from a soundcheck on her current UK tour supporting Kate Nash. “The Police, David Bowie, Prince. Even Television,” she says of the Marquee Moon-sters, “are pop, cos their songs are so damn catchy.”
Della Peruti comes from musician stock: her mum is an opera singer, her dad a jazz composer. She “used to be a crusty – on the Siouxsie side of life”, and listened to Bauhaus, joining all-girl bands variously called the Scum and Noxious Dolls, who boasted “all different kinds of mohawks. Mine was pink and was always a pain in the ass erecting it so I had it flopped down with shaved sides and Chelsea bangs.” Instrumentally proficient, she soon became a gun for hire for the likes of Charli XCX, before deciding to go it alone. “I’ve been putting stuff out for a while, but with these newer songs I set out to make a record that was more hi-fi and focused,” she says.
With fully realised visuals to go with the accomplished sonics, she has created a mini-universe that posits her as a sort of MOR Grimes. “That sounds cool – I never thought of that,” she says. “I just wanted to make a pop record. I love pop, and when it’s just me by myself writing, it’s mega pop stuff that comes out.” By contrast, when she plays live, with Brad Bowers on bass and Rheese Detrow on drums, “We get very jammy and psychedelic. We improvise a lot. So when you hear the album, you’ll hear a marriage of jammy stuff with pop stuff.”
It’s obviously working. Ryan Adams sent her “a bunch of texts [saying] Oh my god! Oh my fucking god! This is amazing!” No wonder. From Feast or Fast, Don’t Give Me Up recalls Haim at their most bass-ic. “I wanted to make something really punchy and work in my love of R&B, too,” she notes. How Life Works is one of those “damn catchy” numbers, with a stylish sadness and a sighing refrain of “sorry … for the inconvenience” appropriate for a snarky song about “an ex-boyfriend who would nitpick my flaws and basically dumped me because of a ridiculously insignificant thing: I left a pile of clothes around the house.” Stronger is addictive in a new wave, Hangin’ on the Telephone way, with a finger-clicking pace just made for a retro movie montage in which the wallflower girl becomes an indomitable woman. It comes accompanied by a video featuring a motorcycle gang, including members of the band Kera and the Lesbians.
“I’m going to make waves,” warns Della Peruti in the song. “I’m not going to play your little PC game.” So what’s that about, then? “It was written when I decided to not walk on eggshells anymore with people who were being rude, putting me down or marginalising me,” she explains. “It’s about me being comfortable asserting myself.”
“We’re all pretty free people and not really scared of doing what we need to do to feel fulfilled,” she adds of herself and her crew. “We’re also weird in the best way.
I got told I was weird growing up. I said things – spoke truths – that aren’t said or broke taboos, manifesting the freedom that I feel as a person.” For example? “I fight back with trolls on the internet,” she says. “Everybody tells me I shouldn’t, but I do. I demand for people to be decent, and I call you out if you’re not. I’m from New Jersey and half-Italian, so I’m pretty good at roasting.”
Next single Your Soul is a slice of glacial pop worthy of Debbie Harry and co, about “reconnecting with an old flame and seeing them put on a facade of ‘I’m doing great now’.” As for that album title, it alludes to “the high stakes of deciding to do this full time”. “I just hope,” she says, finally, “that people feel lots of love from listening to it, or they identify with it and say, ‘Oh, that’s my pain.’”
The buzz: “Cool, with a pinch of 60s shimmy and a pipette full of 80s power pop” – Noisey.
The truth: Oh, Cecilia, you’re making great art.
Most likely to: Make a pile of money.
Least likely to: Leave a pile of clothes.
What to buy: Fast or Feast is released on 19 May by Old Flame.
File next to: Ladyhawke, St Vincent, Haim, Warpaint.
Link: facebook.com/GOTHICTROPIC/
Ones to watch: Papooz, Polo, Girl Ray, Kiiara, TamTam.
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