Ottoline makes heartbreak feel like a beautiful delusion on debut single ‘Chewing Gum’

There's something wonderfully hazy about Ottoline’s debut single ‘Chewing Gum’. Lush synths, hypnotic rhythms and featherlight vocals create the surface of a romantic daydream, while underneath sits the idea that sometimes the relationships we cling to are simply distractions from the things we would rather not confront.

It's an intriguing starting point for the Toronto-based artist. ‘Chewing Gum’ takes the uncertainty of early adulthood and dresses it in colour, glamour and theatrical alt-pop, allowing melancholy and fantasy to occupy the same space.

Lana Del Rey’s 'Born To Die' provides an obvious reference point in the song’s cinematic atmosphere, but Ottoline does more than simply revisit the aesthetics of 2010s alternative pop. Her fascination with different musical eras gives the production a slightly displaced quality, where vintage romanticism rubs against bedroom-made modern pop.

Her airy vocal delivery adds to the sense of detachment, floating through the arrangement while the production creates an increasingly immersive backdrop around her. There's vulnerability in the writing, but also a knowingly playful streak that stops the track from becoming overly sombre.

Most encouragingly, ‘Chewing Gum’ already suggests a strong idea of the world Ottoline wants to build. Having taught herself production after beginning as a guitarist and songwriter, she approaches pop as something visual and theatrical as much as musical, pulling together glamour, uncertainty and slightly surreal storytelling.

Dreamy, dark and full of character, ‘Chewing Gum’ is a compelling first introduction. Ottoline turns the confused emotional landscape of being young into something seductive enough to escape into; even while questioning whether escape is the problem in the first place.