I wish I liked smoking weed more. One hit of a joint and, instead of a pleasant buzz, I’m bombarded with the totality of the universe’s suffering. Besides, I’ve got something stronger. On last year’s Switcheroo, lapsed L.A. folkie Angel Abaya reintroduced herself as Gelli Haha, a Pierrot clown garbed in red Latex. She sang about peeing in jars and likened her sexual stamina to the Energizer Bunny. Her new standalone single (tacked onto the end of Switcheroo on streaming) juices up the album’s aspic basslines and Looney Tunes Foley work with a heavenly host of Hahas. “I’ve got tickets made of lightning bugs,” Abaya sings. “I feel asleep in calculus”—a mantra for adults still doodling in the margins.
“Klouds Will Carry Me” is a heady trip on its own, and then its music video takes us over the rainbow to Gelliland. There’s a car made of clouds and a cameo from the man upstairs, who sort of looks like Seth Rogen. It’s the best kind of art-school nonsense. I had a similar thought at one of her shows last year, where a modular synthesizer and a color-coded drum kit shared just a few square feet of stage with dancers in pig masks and mini trampolines. It’s a lot to pack into the cloud car every night, but it makes Abaya’s fantasy world so real. “I feel ya wrapped around my finger,” she proclaims, a lucid dreamer in full control of the ride.
