I first came across ggwendolyn through her debut album Superstar Syndrome. I started digging backward through some of her older material to see how she had developed as an artist and found four singles from 2024 that felt like a good place to start.

What I like about this collection is that it almost feels like watching ggwendolyn’s music evolve over four songs. It starts small and intimate, with acoustic guitar and a dreamy, bedroom-pop atmosphere, and gradually expands until we reach something much fuller and more elaborate. Along the way, we get glimpses of her as a songwriter, a vocalist, a rock star and a producer.

“Black Hole Swimming Pool” has this really smooth acoustic guitar at the center of it. I hear a little R&B flavor in how it sounds and a bit of haziness around the vocals. As the song goes on, layers of vocals and other textures start piling up, turning it into this dreamy, almost ambient piece of indie pop. The multi-tracked vocals are a big part of the appeal. They create this floating effect, and ggwendolyn gets to show off some of her vocal instincts with a few really cool notes. The song itself sounds like losing your identity inside a relationship. There’s something soulful underneath it all that gives the song a sense of warmth and reflection.

“Marty Party Bailey Daydream” expands that sound a little. It’s another acoustic song, with a bit of a melancholy quality and a slightly trippy, psychedelic edge. I still hear a little R&B in the guitar. This one is a duet with Buck Raines. They take turns telling two different, bittersweet stories before their voices intertwine.

The song looks at people who have lost pieces of themselves, along with dreams they once had. I also like the way the two voices work together. The song feels like a memory, warm and familiar but with a sadness underneath it.

“Small Town Rodeo” swings the doors wide open. It begins with restrained electric-guitar picking before the music kicks in and turns into a straight-up rock song. There’s a great drum fill, a melody that grabs me, and a hook that sticks. This is ggwendolyn in rock-star mode, and it’s a lot of fun.

The song seems to be about the distance between two people and the way your mind can get stuck trying to figure out why you aren’t together. It captures that frustrating cycle of turning things over in your head without necessarily finding an answer. It’s a solid, catchy song.

“mango sticky rice” feels like the culmination of these four songs. It’s the most polished and fully realized of the bunch, starting with an acoustic foundation before the arrangement dips, shifts and gradually reveals more of what’s going on. There are little psychedelic touches toward the end, and a lot of detail in the production without losing the song itself.

ggwendolyn’s vocal is particularly heartfelt here. The song sounds like it’s from someone who knows their relationship is coming to an end, even if they haven’t quite said it out loud. There’s a sadness in recognizing that the end may already have arrived before either person has officially acknowledged it. This one is really just a straight up hit song to my ears.

What I really like about these four songs is how they seem to grow in scale. “Black Hole Swimming Pool” feels intimate, almost like ggwendolyn alone in a room with an acoustic guitar and a collection of vocal layers. “Marty Party Bailey Daydream” adds another voice, “Small Town Rodeo” brings in the band, and “mango sticky rice” pulls everything together into something bigger and more fully realized.

You get to hear ggwendolyn as a songwriter, a singer, a performer and a producer. Each song feels like little steps toward Superstar Syndrome, and each one is pretty solid in its own right.

Verdict: Great

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