“I sing in Catalan in some of my songs because it’s my most private language and I want to keep it alive,” says Gisela Fullà-Silvestre, aka NOIA. The Brooklyn-based Barcelona native is the daughter of activist parents (her father was the member of a Communist party who fought against the Francoist dictatorship), and her work as NOIA comes at a time where Catalan musicians and singers such as Rosalía and Maria Arnal i Marcel Bagés are at the forefront of an internationally recognized cultural moment. On her audacious full-length debut, gisela, NOIA builds her own private universe by melding rich Catalan and Spanish folkloric musical traditions with buoyant electronics.
While similar Auto-Tune flutters and gurgling synths adorned 2019’s dancier Crisàlida EP, NOIA shifts into opulent art-pop eclecticism on gisela. On “didn’t know,” an undaunted, Don Draperesque femme spotlights middling hookups with insufferable fuckboys over a drum-machine beat. Caricaturing the song’s shallow, frivolous subjects in Pedro Almodovar levels of Technicolor, she admits, “Quisiera ser como tú/Liviana y ligera,” adding, “Dime como lo haces tú sin deep feelings en la vena,” (“I wanted to be like you/Light and lithe/Tell me how you do it without deep feelings in your veins”). It’s a riff on an infamous “post-coital pillowtalk” scene in Mad Men, but the focus shifts to camaraderie between a close-knit circle of friends as they laugh off the mishaps that come with dating in a swipe-left dominant landscape, steadfast in their refusal to submit to basic men.
NOIA summons up the extraterrestrial dynamics of Björk’s “Hyperballad” on “reveal yourself,” layering airy falsettos and distorted, pitched-up vocals over a shuffling four-on-the-floor pulse. On the moonlit “otra vida por vivir,” featuring Maria Arnal, she weaves in and out of Catalan beside stuttering circuitry and a gentle but rapturous house-like beat.
On “canço del bes sense port” (Catalan for “song of the kiss without a harbor”), NOIA interpolates fragments of a poem written by Catalan feminist, essayist, and poet Maria Mercè Marçal—who similarly strove to preserve the suppressed language—into a folkloric interlude. “L'aigua roba gessamins/Al cor de la nit morena” (“The water steals jasmines/From the heart of the dark night”), she coos, building on the enigmatic energy of the origina beside Spanish avant-garde jazz musician Agustí Fernández. “La tristesa dins la mar/La mar dins la lluna cega/I la lluna al grat del vent com una trena negra (“The sadness in the sea/The sea in the blind moon/And the moon at the mercy of the wind/Like a black braid”). A tender reprieve following the all-consuming (and slightly toxic) entanglement in “eclipse de amor,” the Barcelona singer’s reworking of the poem further underscores gisela’s meticulous sequencing and greater vision of centering Catalan culture.
“verano adentro,” a glowing standout, is one of the album’s rare peeks into quietude. Beneath the spacey synth lines and deliberately choppy refrains lies a beautifully simple ode to basking in the sun on Barcelona’s rooftops, but it stands as one of the most candid and straightforward pop songs NOIA has yet written.
It’s easy, at first, to get lost in gisela’s many points of reference. Just 30 minutes long, it’s novella-short, but the record traverses numerous genres and forms: acidic glitch pop, pummeling dembow rhythms, and abrasive industrial textures. It’s steeped in the graceful laments and improvised intensity of flamenco, from the reinterpretation of a traditional vidalita sung by fellow Barcelonesa Mayte Martín on “anoche” to the channeling of Estrella Morente on the oceanic “glitter blanca.”
When Fullà-Silvestre first adopted the pseudonym NOIA (Catalan for “girl”), it was to distinguish her electro-experimental solo productions from her work as a designer, mixer, and composer for film and television. While there are moments where the footnotes and sound-collagist maximalism obscure her own perspective as a songwriter, the record never feels labored or overembellished. It’s a dense but cohesive statement on duality, equally shaped by Catalan identity and future-leaning cosmic pop.