Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith’s music lies at the intersection of new age, pop, ambient, and everything in between. Her body of work is defined less by genre than by a common theme—the musical resonance of the body. In her 2021 interview with me forPopMatters, she described her music as an “ode to the wonderment that I have for the electricity that’s in our bodies”. All of which makes sense when you consider her background as a contortionist and yoga instructor.
On GUSH, her latest LP, Smith‘s music is more body-centered than ever. That is evident from the album’s promo photos, which depict Smith stretching and contorting her body into various poses on a motorcycle. GUSH is her dance record, to be exact, but it embraces pop hooks without eschewing any of her characteristic weirdness. It’s full of electronically-treated vocals, stop-and-start polyrhythms, and hypnotic modular grooves. The Buchla music easel—her trademark—is back in full form here.
“What’s between us” is classic Smith, with its summery pads and resplendent keys, and so is “Stare Into Me”, with its pitch-shifted vocals that blur the line between masculine and feminine. “Drip” is perhaps the most straightforward pop hook that Smith has ever written. The track begins with little more than a thudding kick drum and husky, digitized vocals. Then it builds into a glorious catharsis in the chorus, where she repeats “I keep looking away with my eyes on you” over and over, the vocals becoming progressively louder and more upbeat as the song progresses.
Upbeat is, I think, an apt description of Smith’s sound as a whole. The music never takes itself too seriously; it isn’t afraid to just be downright fun. Conventional pop structures are overlaid with bleeps and bloops and off-kilter wordless vocal exercises. The last track, “in the dressing room”, is a whimsical little improvisation on the Buchla music easel. In a way, it almost resembles a child noodling around on an instrument for the first time—hitting notes freely and randomly—yet this is not to the track’s detriment. It fits neatly with the LP’s childlike nature, its lightness of touch.
There are occasional times on GUSH when songs seem a little torn between being straightforward pop songs and avant-garde pieces, but for the most part, it’s these contrasts that ultimately give the album its beauty. Whether she’s creating music for the dance floor or the yoga studio, Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith continues to blend disparate styles into her own unique sonic melting pot.
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