A few days before launching new LP Gush, American electronic artist Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith is throwing an album listening (and watching) party. The mixed International Festival crowd possibly isn’t her usual audience, but maybe some have used her ringtone without realising (she composed Apple’s celestial ‘Storytime’ ringtone. Like her previous album co-creator, the pioneering Suzanne Ciani, Smith knows how to hustle as well as blow minds with synths). Here, Smith is using a Buchla Music Easel, drawing us into a colourful and surreal dreamscape while keeping it low key in a baseball cap and knee socks.

Compared to earlier albums, Gush is more personal, exploring her synaesthesia and feelings of falling in love. Album tracks ‘Drip’, ‘Into Your Eyes’ and ‘Stare Into Me’ are accompanied by beautifully strange, tactile or adrenal videos of her slithering over furniture using contortionism, crushing fruit, and racing motorbikes in the desert. Her music envelopes the room in a meteor shower of psychedelic bleeps and bright textures. ‘I Am A Thought’ from 2017’s The Kid is a gorgeous throwback to earlier cosmic wig-outs while uplifting closer ‘Lightshine’ (her remix of Boreta’s track) sends us out into the night with a gently euphoric buzz on.

Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith reviewed at The Hub; main picture: Jess Shurte.