Gigi Perez’s Unique Debut: Vocals, Loss, and Viral Hits

Unconventional Song Structures

It’s not a standard debut album by any type of stretch: The tunes, written and created by Perez with one or two collaborators (primarily her pals Noah Weinman and Aidan Hobb), are driven nearly entirely by stacked multitracked vocals and massed acoustic guitars, with periodic keyboards or string decorations and extremely little percussion. Occasionally the tracks ride on arrangements and intensity rather than conventional tune structure: For example, “Crown” kind of circles melodically but the shipment and setup diminish and construct, offering the impact of verse/chorus without really adhering to that formula.

Musical Experimentation

And she damages development musically with the next-to-last track, “Whirlwind,” which starts with a thumping beatbox that is so unlike the remainder of the album that it may have audiences in the beginning inspecting to see if the album has ended and the streaming service is autoplaying a various musician– yet instead, it’s an entirely various, encouraging musical lane for her, with an autotuned carolers and lavish keyboards and vocal setups in addition to the loping beat.

Gigi Perez is a 25-year-old Cuban-American singer-songwriter who concentrates on the type of yearning, heartspilling tunes that have passionate fans vocal singing along tearfully at her programs (we’ve seen it occur), and a voice that completely fits them: A striking alto that is unexpectedly deep for a female singer yet, even more uncommonly, remembers Jeff Buckley and Radiohead’s Thom Yorke when she strokes up into higher registers.

Tragedy and Triumph Backstory

Her backstory is loaded with a succession of tragedies and victories: An older sister who died early in the pandemic– and whose voicemails are sprayed throughout this album– followed by an agonizing breakup, and afterwards a viral hit that led to major-label offer, an EP (“How to Capture a Falling Knife”), days opening for Coldplay and Noah Cyrus … and after that being dropped from that significant label. She pulled away back to her Florida home, collected yourself and kept releasing tracks, consisting of the queer-themed viral hits “Please Be Rude” and her outbreak hit “Seafarer Tune,” both of which are included here on her debut full-length for Island Records.

Themes of Loss and Love

She’s a effective and flexible vocalist, efficient in singing vigorously or with a hush (“Normalcy”) that starts intimate and turns uneasy. Purposefully or no, the album commonly recalls Bon Iver’s galvanizing 2007 debut, “For Emma, Forever Ago,” which has similar themes of loss, seclusion and solitude. Yet Perez likewise blends in some lusty verses in the middle of the ones concerning loss and solitude, particularly on “Sailor Track” and “Please Be Rude,” the latter of which lets in some unusual rays of optimism around the exploration of a brand-new love.