Brooklyn duo Gemma offers a heady, creamy psych-R&B concoction

20 July 2015, 09:45 | Written by Jon Putnam

(Tracks)

If idle hands are the devil’s playthings, then Brooklyn musician and visual artist Felicia Douglass will easily steer clear of Lucifer’s puppet strings.

In addition to a number of collaborations with the likes of Brooklyn producer Baile and psych-popster Toro Y Moi, Douglass is most notably a vocalist and keyboardist (and album cover artist) for the genre-skewering Ava Luna.

Gemma is Douglass’s offshoot partnership with equally eclectic musician Erik Gundel. The debut single and title track to the upcoming debut LP, “As Ever” features the crystalline, R&B-inflected vocals that have defined all of Douglass’s disparate work.

“As Ever” suggests Gemma to be a far more electronic endeavor than Ava Luna, as Douglass’s vocals creamily waft over and around Gundel’s technicolour loops. It’s also an indication that the pair are committed to the same sonic experimentalism as Ava Luna, while many will likely find Gemma a more palatable serving of it than Ava Luna’s often jarring genre-bending.

As Ever is due out 2 October courtesy of Inflated Records and can be preordered here.