Helena Gao found her voice on the dancefloor

If you’ve been following the cutting edge of pop music, then there’s a high chance you’ve heard of the Rhythmic Music Conservatory in Copenhagen. Opened as a state project by the Danish Ministry of Culture in 1986, what started as an old-school jazz conservatory evolved into a star-machine for alt-pop with the introduction of its composition course. Smerz, ML Buch, Astrid Sonne, and Erika de Casier are among its esteemed alumni, but poised to become the school’s next breakout star yet is Danish-Chinese singer, songwriter, and producer Helena Gao. Known best for her Grammy-nominated work on Zara Larsson’s Midnight Sun, Gao's solo efforts are now taking off in tandem, culminating in September’s explosive gao dan dan EP, a delightful bundle of forward-looking pop fit to bear the torch of the burgeoning scene surrounding Gao and her contemporaries. Sign up to Best Fit's Substack for regular dispatches from the world of pop culture These days, Gao is seldom actually in Denmark, save for the odd layover to see home friends and go to the dentist, but its influence on her remains. Mostly, she’s in Shanghai, her adopted home at the moment, with sporadic periods in London, as she begins to...