in an era of smoky skies and scary salad, the Brooklyn pop duo’s EP is an ecstatic anecdote (“Go outside, go outside, the sun’s coming out, it’s all gonna end up okay!”)

———————————————————————————————

Maybe it can be traced to the recent musical return of Hilary Duff (a figure so formative in my middle-school years that I made the mistake of cutting my own bangs) (twice), but as of late—hey now, heey noo-oow—I’ve been feeling the undeniable pull of pop.

It’s obviously not a unique take (or taste); pop is… popular, after all. But it’s a bit of a swerve away from my longtime sonic sensibilities. Whereas in recent years, I’ve been attracted to the underground with a preference for punk (basically the type of bands headlining your fave Bushwick basements), recently I’ve caught myself leaning in this more… TRL-esque… direction. Maybe it’s heat of summer; maybe it’s the call of nostalgia. Or perhaps it’s just because—between horrific headlines, smoky skies and a new shared salad phobia—we’re all in need of something a little light. Less apocalyptic, more… apopalyptic?! The kind of songs you sing into your hairbrush in the morning. Music that’s just… fun.

New sonic cravings aside, that’s not to say I plan on abandoning headbanging in DIY spaces to take the 2 uptown and trade friendship bracelets with 20,000 shrieking fangirls. My interest is still in indie, and my heart still beats most for Brooklyn. I’m not interested in Taylor or Olivia, Charli or Chappell. I want emerging talent, locally sourced tunes. To drive around (or be driven around!) the borough the windows down, drinking an orange mocha frappucino and blasting a song made by babes I still share a bodega with.

I might be craving pop. But I’m still a little pretentious.

And here’s the good news. It turns out I (and you!) don’t have to choose between pop perfection and Brooklyn DIY. You can have your fun and your local fix too, and with THAT, I present the duo at the center of this very Venn Diagram.

MK Charron and Mark Matter are the gluu, and they just dropped their debut EP gluu.0 this week!

If you too have long been ~off-pop~, consider this your cue to come back. gluu.0 offers 16 minutes of sweet and sexy catharsis—six songs to sing along and shake your ass to. These are tracks that call for best friends and crop-tops and choreography (or at least jumping up and down under the same disco ball) (wherever one finds a disco ball). A electric and eclectic sampler that both shimmers and rocks… pop ecstasy infused with just enough edge to qualify the band to play the aforementioned Brooklyn basement.

Ahead of the release of their brand-new EP, MK (also the singer in Talon!) shared a bit about the artists and the eras who served a sonic inspiration for the duo—and what to expect after their new project’s debut.

“gluu.0 lays the sonic foundation for the world of the gluu. Mark and I have been making pop music together for 2.5 years (and releasing singles since July 2025). The aim of this EP was to release something cohesive that reflects every facet of our broad pop music tastes–much like a beautiful, sparkling diamond. Wait, did someone just say our EP is a diamond? Omigod that’s like literally so nice. 

Our sound pulls from two decades of being avid music consumers and makers: pulling on the pop-punk sounds of our aughts childhoods (Avril Lavigne, Paramore) and warmer pop-rock top 40 (Natasha Bedingfield, Michelle Branch), plus Charli XCX in every iteration (and I mean all the way back to True Romance, sorry we’re obsessed with you girl). We love synths of every shape and size but we also love guitars and NO WE WILL NOT PICK ONE WE WILL HAVE LOTS OF BOTH! Where these six songs came from there are no joke 35 more so we will likely release another EP asap, please run these tracks on repeat in the meantime.”

MK also shared a track-by-track with details (sound! story! vibe!) on the EP’s six songs, which include a rom-com-ready summer soundtrack, a subway (sort of) missed connection and a call to finally get off the rollercoaster and leave that toxic lesbian.

gluu.0—TRACK BY TRACK:

“drag u thru hell”

“The opening track on our EP sets the stage for the dirty, in-your-face synths we’ve been really into lately. We love the sounds that artists like M.I.A., Sleigh Bells, and Between Friends play with… things that are gritty and aggressive but still super hooky. 

They’re tempered by my bubbly, sometimes cutesy-cringe lyrics (‘she’s got a great ass but the aura doesn’t match’).  I like to tell stories in our songs, and I wrote the lyrics for ‘drag u thru hell’ when one of my best friends was on the rollercoaster ride of an on-again off-again relationship. It’s a you-don’t-need-a-man anthem except the man is a woman cuz hey! Lesbians can be toxic too!”

“puppy love”

“‘puppy love’ pulls a lot of inspiration from stomp-clap cheerleader anthems — think ‘What the Hell’ by Avril Lavigne and ‘get him back!’ by Olivia Rodrigo. It’s probably the rock-iest song on the EP. Mark has an epic guitar solo (Warped Tour alum hello!) and there are five million layers of distorted rhythm guitars. 

The song is about simping after Some Girl. It’s based on a very real life experience I had on the subway: a pretty girl was sitting across from me on the M train reading her book. I was looking at her a little (not in a creepy way or anything OK) and also kinda of just daydreaming. Suddenly she snapped her head up and asked me point blank “what the fuck do you want?” Ok… so there definitely wasn’t a vibe.”

“sunshine”

“Currently my favorite song on the EP, also the focus track of this release with a video coming soon. Mark made this lush beat in March when we were both depressed as fuck but somehow powering through the winter anyways. We started layering guitars and shimmery synths and wrote super obvious lyrics: ‘sunshine, what’s up? you can come back to my side, it’s alright.’ It’s me talking to the sun, it’s me talking to a friend, it’s me talking to myself. Go outside, go outside, the sun’s coming out, it’s all gonna end up okay! 

I listened to this song 500 million times during April and May, headphones on, walking around Bushwick, smiling at people and buying tulips and feeling like the winter was thawing out into an early aughts rom com. The song feels different but equally juicy now in deep July. It just hits so good.”

“cool”

“This was a classic writing situation where Mark made an incredible beat and I came into the studio and in one morning we tracked almost all of the song. That morning was the morning of New Year’s Eve, which I remember because there was an original pass at the lyrics that was all about me being stressed that people weren’t going to come to my New Year’s Eve party that night lmao. They did and everything ended up so fine and then I listened back to the song and I was like wow I’m over this let’s make it a ‘do you love me or do you love me not?’ song instead. (Which maybe, in essence, was what it was in the first place anyways? Hm.)

If we had an infinite budget I think this song would be perfect for a super cute high-school-prom type video that is very cinematic and ends with a big kiss scene. Think ‘You Belong With Me’ thing except I never said that because I don’t want you-know-who to sue me a la Olivia Rodrigo. Ultimately now that all of this is in writing, this video will probably never get made. Worth it for the bit though.”

“scar”

“There is literally no other way to say this: the story of this song was based completely on Heather Gay and Jen Shaw’s complicated friendship in Season 1 of the Real Housewives of Salt Lake City. I am always way behind but desperately trying to be current on the important pillars of reality TV and I was in the middle of RHOSLC when we were in the studio writing ‘scar.’ I was totally obsessed with the iloveyouihateyou dynamic of their relationship and the lyrics for this song spilled out pretty much in one piece.

Mark absolutely bodied the synths on this song, they feel so massive yet melancholic to me, a lot like some tracks on Charli’s how i’m feeling now album. Plus some gorgeous guitars in there. This might be the sad, ballad-ish track on the EP, but it’s a sleeper hit imo.”

“never bring me home”

“This was the last song we wrote for the EP and after finishing it, we felt like it was also a perfect finale track. It’s so big, it’s its own world– which is ultimately where the lyrics ended up going too (out to outer space… or something like that). 

I think this track is one of Mark’s biggest producing flexes on the EP. When he originally sent me this track, I was in love with the way these synths feel like they’re shooting you through some kind of cosmic portal. From there, we decided everything in the production should be err towards maximalism. Mark layered a thousand electric guitars on the final chorus and got his friend Jake to track the final drums live for that massive stadium sound. We hammed up the prechorus lyrics as much as possible just to prove how singular this song is: “LOVE… ESCAPE… INFINITE… UNTOUCHABLE.” The song takes you to this distant dream world that you never want to leave, which felt like a perfect cliffhanger for the end of gluu.0.”

—

Consider these tunes a necessary reminder that music (and liiiiife!) can indeed be fun.

May this EP offer you the pop-sitive energy you need today as you go forth and ~do the gluu~. I’ll be working on my choreo in the bathroom mirror (hopefully not cutting my bangs).

———————————————————————————————

Follow the band at @_the_gluu), grab music on bandcamp and add the songs to your Spotify playlists now! Find all things The Gluu at thegluu.net!

Feature image provided by the band.