Made up of duo Kiera Court and Danny Casio, Head Ballet are a self-produced act the pair formed whilst living together in Manchester during the COVID-19 lockdowns. With an experimental sound that blends together soft, dream-like melodies and warm distortion, Court and Casio bonded over a shared love of musical heroes that include Grimes, Arcade Fire, and Nine Inch Nails.
Featuring guitar work from Yungblud guitarist Adam Warrington, Contact Lens was created in Head Ballet’s London studio. With a sound that the pair liken to Venn diagram overlap of White Lies and Caroline Polachek, Contact Lens definitely has the emotive indie-pop charm of Polachek’s work within Chairlift. Hazy melodies combine with snappy-yet-muted drums as Kiera’s vocal picks out a fragile melody, later joined by Danny’s vocal harmonies.
Contact Lens itself a song about the experience of romance. The titular contact lens is representative of the sad conclusion that, just as a contact lens can fall out and be lost, beauty can slip from the eye of the beholder, the new perspective gained “just as dizzying”.
I love the soft-focused indie-pop aesthetic here — a dash of Sofia Coppola meets some good old romantic yearning for what was lost. Check it out below: