GB

Experimental art-pop as a time machine? Or perhaps more as a vehicle for a torn inner life? Or maybe both. In any case, Gustav Berntsen’s music is a soul-baring exercise with compositional ambition. Since the release of his enthusiastically received debut album, “Gusse Music” (2024), the singer–songwriter from Copenhagen has deliberately refused to be pigeonholed, celebrating his own eclecticism anew in every song. At times, a four-piece chamber orchestra sits in a dusty parlour, playing in bitter agony before the mind’s eye. Then, an acoustic guitar appears, and the setting turns rural, evoking a homecoming. The next moment, ambient textures unfold, becoming heavy and weightless, before a stylistic miniature later makes everything sound like that one lost bedroom indie gem from the 90s that had – for some reason – eluded us for over three decades. As GB, the Dane serves up these images, this keyboard of emotions, with ethereal elegance and surprises us song after song with ideas that were unforeseeable yet that make perfect sense. On last year’s mixtape “Falter” (2025), he also proved that this unbridled creativity is not a snapshot in time, but his modus operandi. If he carries on like this, we can logically expect even greater things to come. But one thing is certain: a memorable performance here in September.