Burgeoning alt-pop three-piece GAUCI today announce their next project, Growing Pains due April 4. To celebrate, they forge new ground with their latest single ‘Dead Afraid’. LISTEN HERE.

‘Dead Afraid’ captures the spectrum of GAUCI’s craft, operating on the experimental intersection of their influences in hard rock and shiny pop. However divergent they may be, the group’s wide-ranging taste is authentically straddled through their deeply entrenched stuff of production, instrumentation, and undeniable ear for hooks. GAUCI promise to relay this spectre in full with their debut mixtape, conjuring their deepest alt-rock influences yet.

Speaking to the mixtape, they share, “This mixtape is probably the best body of work we’ve worked on together as a group. We feel like we’ve really tapped into all of our collective influences and created something that we’d love to listen to ourselves. Some of the songs on this mixtape had their inception more than 3 years ago and we wanted to make sure we did them justice. It has a heavy focus on live instrumentation which I think has brought the songs alive.“

‘Dead Afraid’ is a virile track emblematic of the shoegaze renaissance – as trudged locally by GAUCI’s peers in Eliza & The Delusionals and Hatchie, to the influence of yeule and glaive’s electronic-pop ladden iteration. Where the earlier ‘BRAT’ spoke to the gleeful Britpop and 2000’s rock that brought them together as friends and creative force, today’s ‘Dead Afraid’ is an emotionally resonant anthem of loss. A darkwave hybrid with rippling soundscapes of processed harmony.

Of the single’s genesis, Antonia shares “I’m normally a very private person, but this track is about the most difficult experience I’ve ever been through. The night before we started writing this song, I didn’t know that I’d just seen my grandmother for the last time. After a long night sitting in emotional limbo, we turned up for our zoom writing session, waiting for an update, wishing for a positive outcome. Eventually David and I got the news that she had passed away and the world around me came crashing down. I was shattered and completely heartbroken.

“Dead Afraid is about that time and when you just don’t want to accept what’s happening to you,” she continues. “You play the moment over endlessly in your head, toeing the line of what’s real and what’s a dream. I never intended to write about grief, but the vocal melody and delivery really is the juxtaposition of those high and low moments of that experience. It’s me trying to claw my way back out of it all. It’s sad, it’s cathartic, loud, and I love that it’s unlike anything we’ve ever made before.”

Bound by “starry-eyed” lyrics, the single is a world-building release that straddles the hypnotising command of WILLOW – vocals unlike anything in GAUCI’s discography – with Paramore’s power chords. Taut and stoic one moment, intricate and profoundly passionate the next, ‘Dead Afraid’ reverberates on wrung-out slide guitar and menacing bass. Questions of dreams that “end when morning comes” refract against shimmering reflections of grief and transitory connections; conscious sleepwalking, where isolation is the cost of retreating to our internal machinations. 

GAUCI flanked 2023 with a storm of activity: showcases at BIGSOUND recalled as “seriously impressive”by Richard Kingsmill, and overcapacity at Phoenix Central Park for SXSW Sydney; back-to-back praise from The Guardian on their recent ‘BRAT’ and triple j playlisted ‘Irritating’, amongst remixes for Vallis Alps and DZ Deathrays. The group continue to growth from strength to strength, from landing the #1 most playlisted independent act across DSPs with ‘BRAT’ through to Top 10 placement inAMRAP’s Regional Charts alongside support across Frankie Magazine, Junkee, Mixdown Magazine, Atwood Magazine, triple j Unearthed, FBi Radio, SYN, Edge and more. With Growing Pains on the horizon, GAUCI dare you to challenge them further.