Album Review: GUSH by Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith

On the album's namesake track, Smith, her spectral voice undulating, verbalises this display by building up to the mantra: "I like how you think / I like the way you see things". GUSH is Smith shaping her abstruse and idiosyncratic electronic textures to explore her admiration for objects often deemed innocuous and trivial. Funnelling meaning into those things through her wondrous aural world, that sentiment feels sincere, empowering, and purposeful.

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GUSH, Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith's ninth full-length release, is a collection of danceable tracks that don't quite flow as a dance album. Opener "Drip" eases listeners into a promise of movement that gem "What's Between Us" later fulfills with an easy-to-follow energetic arc. What's between the two, however, perplexes. "Urges" plateaus too quickly while "Stare Into Me" features cool-but-choppy vocals evoking vaporwave and FKA twigs that clash with the track's gently tropical rhythm.

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The Instagram profile of Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith is filled with images showcasing the West Coast producer's calisthenics routine. Similarly, the promo for the album is a shot of Smith performing a variation of a press handstand on the seat of a motorcycle. Although not stated explicitly, the connection to bodily experiences is a key subject on Gush. Starting with an arrhythmia of pounding electronic beats, the opening 'Drip' ruminates on non-verbal communication with the protagonist unable to speak what they feel: "I keep looking away with my eyes on you".

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