Minimalism as an aesthetic has been having a really big impact on pop music around the globe in the last half-decade or so, and ironically, so has surrealism, and although the two schools often present conflicting ideals when it comes to making an interesting groove all the more fascinating to us, they strike a near-perfect balance in the new single “Naïve” from Giadora that has got critics abuzz this late February – and for good reason. Giadora, using her golden pipes as a catalyst for all of the texture that the track would inevitably force her to support, combines the best of both worlds so to speak in “Naïve,” delicately layering smart harmonies atop of a beat-centric bedrock that could easily be remixed for extended purposes if she saw fit. Audiences that have simply grown tired of the fluff that often weighs down new pop music in this increasingly artificial era for the genre can’t go wrong with what this single has to offer anyone who gives it a listen, and if you don’t believe me, I’d recommend sitting down with the track for yourself this season.
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There’s a bit of a gothic undertow to the stylization of the bassline in “Naïve” that is both charismatic cosmetically and menacing in tone where we would least expect it to be. Few occasions arise over the course of the song where Giadora isn’t charged with straddling the percussive beat with her sumptuous lead vocal, but her self-control at the position of frontwoman here makes it impossible for her trajectory to drift away from that of the rest of her band’s.
She’s the driving force behind every swinging push in the groove, and had her verses been accompanied by any additional string elements beyond what we’ve already got here – as obscured by the bassline as it frequently is – I don’t believe that we would have been able to tune into the lyrical narrative as well as we are in this instance. Giadora has more post-punk in her sound than she was initially letting on with “Twisted,” her first single, and I want to hear more of what it can inspire in the next release she sticks her name on.
You can look far and wide this upcoming spring, but I just don’t think you’re going to find another singer with the kind of artistic diversity in her overall profile that Giadora has in “Naïve.” I get the feeling that both this song and “Twisted” were just small samplings of what she could record with no limitations (financial, creative or otherwise) to slow her down. The momentum that her music is experiencing right now is nothing to scoff at, and if she wants to make the most of it, I think she’d best get back into the studio before summer rolls around. Her scene in Los Angeles is one of the fastest-paced in the entire country, if not the world, and she shouldn’t waste a moment in getting this sound of hers exposed to the masses as 2020 starts to come into focus.
Garth Thomas