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The opening, lilting guitars of “Roseate,” the first single from Greek-American singer Ioanna Gika’s upcoming debut solo LP of the same name, may make you wonder why she’s on tour with beloved indie metal group Deafheaven.“Goodbye / In waves the message rang through the sea,” Gika sings in a half-coo, half-lament. “The pelicans froze in the air, they saw what was no longer there.” It’s borderline folky, though hardly a harbinger of what’sto come.
Like the music of her tourmates, the song builds in emotional intensity, albeit with programmed drums and dark synths that sound like My Brightest Diamond writing a Suicide song. As “Roseate” crescendos into a chugging,panic-inducing sonic 180 from its opening chords, the tension Gika creates isn’t just palpable; it makes you want a cigarette and someone to hug. It’s the musical equivalent of the initial descent of a roller coaster; that paradoxicalrush of ecstasy and dread where you want to get off and fly down the trackat the same time.
Gika, best known as one-half of Los Angeles indie-rock duo Io Echo, begins her tour with DIIV and Deafheaven October 19th at Pappy and Harriet’s in Pioneertown, CA through a Halloween date at Jersey City, NJ’s White Eagle Hall.
Ioanna Gika’sdebut albumis out earlynext year on Sargent House.
