Add to playlist: the wild club-pop of Zara Larsson cowriter Helena Gao and the week’s best new tracks

The Chinese-Danish artist wrote nine 10ths of Larsson’s breakout album then got a Grammy nod. It’s a fine springboard for her own revelatory pop

From Aarhus, Denmark
Recommended if you like Caroline Polachek, Zara Larsson, Grimes
Up next Debut project coming later this year

You could hardly make a better professional songwriting debut than co-writing nine 10ths of a moment-defining album – namely Zara Larsson’s Midnight Sun – then getting a Grammy nod for it. It’s an enviable springboard for the relaunch of Helena Gao’s solo career. Over the past few years, the Chinese-Danish artist has released a handful of singles and EPs – standout God’s Favourite split the difference between NewJeans and R&B, and comes with an excellent Sims-referencing video – but her new music feels like a real flourishing, sidelining her older sweetness for a freakier braid of heavy bass, stuttering trance and a pitch-bending falsetto to rival that of Caroline Polachek, singing in English and Mandarin.
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