Born out of the Warsaw underground in 2018, Gorgeous didn’t set out to fit neatly into any genre box. Their sound was, and still is, a strange concoction of emo’s raw vulnerability, indie’s jangly nonchalance, and slowcore’s heavy-lidded introspection. Gorgeous is more like a sonic sandbox where anything goes, a messy, loud testament to their refusal to conform.
Their early days were marked by a kind of beautiful disarray. Kicked off by a group of friends who barely knew their instruments, yet somehow managed to piece together songs that captured the angst and uncertainty of their youth. Their first album was an awkward, yet oddly charming, mixtape of influences—from shoegaze to ska—thrown together without a clear direction, but with a lot of heart. It was a snapshot of where they were at—a time when they were more interested in exploring sound than in crafting something cohesive.
After a hiatus where life pulled them in different directions, the band reformed in 2023 with a sharper, more defined vision. But even now, their music remains a fractured mirror, reflecting the weird, dark corners of the emo revival, drenched in the moody atmospheres of indie and hardcore.
It’s more unified, sure, but still retains that unpredictable, experimental edge. Lato jest ciepłe w tym roku – their latest EP released in August 2024, is a visceral dive into the band’s evolving sound, capturing the essence of a fleeting summer with both warmth and a lurking sense of melancholy.
The new tracks are darker, more atmospheric, and finally sung in Polish, adding an even more personal touch to their already intimate vibe.
Dive into the full interview to get a closer look at their journey, their influences, and where they’re headed next.
Hey, how did you guys get started? Tell us about the beginning of this project. Let’s go back a few years – how did the band form?
Gorgeous was kind of created by accident about 6 years ago – in the autumn of 2018, purely as a way for some friends to experiment with making music. Maurycy, our drummer, and Albert, the guitarist, were already playing some small shows around local schools, and they were desperate to find more people to form an actual band. Mikołaj (bass) had absolutely no idea how to play at the time, so he joined on a whim. Jędrzej started as a guitarist but through some complicated shenanigans ended up singing as well. To put it simply, all of us were starting to get into music and didn’t have anyone to experiment with, so we just picked people from our friend group who wanted to make stuff with us.
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What have you managed to record over the years before you went on hiatus?
Our hiatus came after our first album, when we were all leaving for college to different places. That first record was made on a really tight budget and honestly serves more as a nice souvenir of those years rather than any cohesive work. During the hiatus, we remained friends just as we had before, but didn’t have any way to create together. We started other projects, expanded our tastes and just got better at making music. After a couple years we all ended up back in Warsaw and decided to return to Gorgeous.
Let us know how active you were. Did you play a lot of shows?
Back in high school we took playing shows very seriously. We were auditioning for school festivals, local shows, really anything we had a chance to play in. It was all really stupid and honestly we didn’t play very well – our stage presence was nonexistent and there were more wrong notes than right ones in most songs. All in all however, it was an extremely valuable experience. We learned a lot.
Tell us more about your debut album and the inspirations that fueled it back then.
As you can probably hear, it’s a very eclectic collection. Because we were just starting to seriously get into music, our inspirations were all over the place – emo, shoegaze, ska, jazz, rock… We couldn’t settle on a sound that “fit” all of us, so our music sounded pretty childish, with no direction behind it. That whole era of our band could be summarised as an “experience-farming” stage.
What led to the hiatus?
As we’ve said before, it was a really simple reason – we were leaving for college. Mikołaj went to Glasgow to study architecture, and Jędrzej to Belgium to study chemical engineering. There wasn’t really a way for us to keep making music. However, all of us kept experimenting, and we returned a hundred times more confident than before.
You’re back this year with new tracks. What made you return to the project?
After Mikołaj and Jędrzej returned to Warsaw, we all had some new ideas for songs. Jędrzej also wrote more heartfelt and personal lyrics – this time in Polish – and we decided to just get together and try out the new sound. We liked it, and so the idea to bring the band back was conceived. As mentioned, our taste in music changed as well, so new influences could be put to the test.
We hear a lot of different influences, but it’s mainly got a very atmospheric and somewhat dark vibe for indie emo. How have your inspirations evolved since you recorded your album?
You can see our former and/or early influences in our Spotify page’s playlist, though they are a bit weird and outdated. Jędrzej is now listening to hardcore, emo revival, and second and third wave of emo. He likes The Antlers a lot, which you can hear in some songs. In general, our influences are now more unified than before, meaning that our personal taste is more coherent, but that we also like similar things as a band.
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What are your plans for this year? Can we expect any shows?
We want to record a new single in the next few months, maybe release it this year as well. In October we will possibly play a gig in Gdansk with our friends at Screw, maybe some more shows along the way. But we don’t really know yet.
What other projects are you involved in? Are you active in other bands?
We have Wracaj, bo ciemno, in which Maurycy is the vocalist and guitarist, but this is pretty much it at this moment. [check out this IDIOTEQ feature about Wracaj, Bo Ciemno].
Well, there is also the unnamed disco polo project of Mikołaj and Albert’s, but that’s at the bottom of the iceberg and so far remains unreleased.
What are your top picks for emo releases of the year, or any albums that you can’t get out of your head and that will definitely leave a mark this year?
New Gorgeous EP of course. But seriously though, the new Your Arms are My Cocoon album is great.
There is an amazing jazz-punk band from Gdansk called Żółw, and they released their debut album this year, it’s really wonderful.
And we can’t forget our friends from Screw, whose debut EP is also fantastic.
Thanks a lot! If you want to add anything, feel free to throw it out there. Thanks again, cheers!
Huge thanks to IDIOTEQ! Gorgeous is our passion project and we really just want to have fun; if someone likes our music, that’s great.
Usually it’s a bummer when half of the crowd at your show are your friends, but with this band it’s really cool, it’s like we have a party with the people we love.
