Ears Wide Open: Gel Set

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Gel Set
Gel Set

“I like crunchy, hard electronic music that sounds like it was made by someone who is growing mushrooms on their person,” says Laura Callier, a multimedia artist who makes music under the name Gel Set.

Last summer, the Houston-bred Callier packed her bags and headed from her college station of Chicago to Los Angeles, partly for a change of scenery and partly to pursue a career in sound design and production. She settled in an apartment in Koreatown, where, using an assortment of synths and electronic gadgets, she made her new album “Body Copy,” coming out Oct. 20. The phrase, of course, refers to the text in the body of a document, but she twists it: “What is the content of your body’s copy?” she asks.

The album was inspired by the sense of isolation and loneliness that newbies often feel upon moving to L.A. It can be imposing. And you can hear that in the album’s lead song “Don’t You Miss Me?” as a web of hyperactive beats and synths flit from ear to ear while Callier coos, barely above a whisper. As if in a trance and suspended above the people, lights and muted sounds of the city, you feel very much detached. Here but not here. Welcome.

||| Stream: “Don’t You Miss Me?”