Move to the Dollskabeat

Welcome to the world of Dollskabeat. If you wanted a comprehensive introduction, I could begin by listing a few epithets used of late to describe her music: “Electropop”. “Cosmic space-funk”. “Illuminated synth-pop”. “The Knife going mid-tempo italo.” “Glamour, sleaze and sheer class in one equal measure.”

I'd probably then flag up the (accurate) comparisons with many female-fronted acts on the Italians Do It Better label, maybe even highlight it with a separate little 'If You Like This…” section. Nite Jewel, Glass Candy, Chromatics… It's true. If you like them, you'll probably love Dollskabeat.

But the thing is, it's for different reasons; she creates a world so disconnected to anything else that it's difficult not to view it as an entity all on its own. There are definitely familiar references – the retro flashback to Gary Numan's definitive synths, Kraftwerk's nihilism, the Annie Lennox-esque commanding vocals – but for some reason, an overriding feeling both on record and at her live shows is one of a new world having been created.

Debut single Zodiac Rising was released on Optimo Music this June, but even if you didn't know that, the attention to production is so typical to that label – think Hi-NRG sound obsessives Den Haan – that it's likely you'd have guessed. You can sense the intensity of the recording sessions. It's in the crisp synth claps, in the sighs blending with the melody before being swiftly snipped. It's in the recurrent words “digitally”, “rhythmically”; the way the melody neatly scales its minor arpeggio; the sound of the resonant voice cutting through smooth, synthesized sharpness like a knife.

It's no surprise that the term 'spacer woman' is being bandied around in every article; lazy journalism it may be, but it's a perfect way of summing up the music, and it seems the best way to write about Lucy Ross. Personal details seem somehow irrelevant, unless it's to say that she's a music geek through and through.

Similar to label mates Den Haan, Ross wants the show to be completely live, and is willing to pay for quality in terms of time and effort; my friend excitedly informs me after the show that the drum machine was worth over a grand. “It's very difficult to try and re-create electronic music live”, admits Ross, “but I hope to keep working on getting the show to the best it can be. I'd rather bring something completely new and fresh to the table with fewer shows, than do loads of them on a smaller scale.” In a club scene that actively defines itself as messy, dirty and filthy, this is the opposite: the lost art of perfectionism.

Zodiac Rising's 3:57 minutes seem to shoot by and, with only the track's B-side online for company, fans are left wanting – perhaps even needing – more. I state, a little tritely, that there isn't much music online; for some, it could well be a deliberate ploy to garner hype, who knows.

I couldn't be more wrong. “I know... I know!” she admits, understandably harassed. “I've been spending months working on an EP and a one-off single but recently had a disastrous computer meltdown when the cooling fluid leaked out. It's taken me a while to get the tracks back to how they were, as I lost a lot of it but they're well underway.”

There really is no tactic in the modest, music-obsessed world of Dollskabeat, and it's utterly refreshing. As much as is ever possible in the music industry, the bubbling hype is not necessarily attached to a specific scene or fashion. Yes, the live shows attract the ubiquitous smattering of art school types in faux black-rimmed glasses and oversized woolly jumpers, but it's by no means a uniform. Whereas some acts seem to create a fashion based around their own clothes, duly copied by adoring fans, Dollskabeat comes on stage in an understated t-shirt and jeans. There's no hint of the Goldfrapp-esque coquettishness I expected. The music rightfully takes centre stage.

Similarly, the live show, like that of Nite Jewel, occupies a limbo position between gig and club which the younger crowd are perhaps unsure how to respond to. Knots of leggings-clad girls giggle throughout the show, then sway, then stop, then get another drink; it's difficult to know quite how to respond when the music demands your rapt attention.

Take her collaboration with burgeoning Edinburgh house producer Linkwood, for example. They met in a studio while she was recording vocals, and bonded over “sound, producers and music we love”. The result was Linkwood agreeing to mix and engineer her album, and Ross recording vocals for a track on his debut album System.

“We went to the pub and chatted for hours about what makes music sound good, as we'd been hearing a lot of bad production at that time. Pretty geeky, but there you go.”

System strikes you for the same reason as Zodiac Rising: the attention to detail is just gorgeous. But whereas there are definite similarities – the classic disco bassline, for one – many of Linkwood's tracks transport you straight to Detroit or Chicago. It's music for the dancefloor. Dollskabeat definitely makes you move, and the creation of a separate world, where you can tune in and zone out, is what dance music is all about. But the seriousness with which the music is taken seems to affect the music a little more obviously.

I mention a track I was impressed with at the show, with Ross's voice booming what sounds like the word 'bullshit' from the stage, distorted by a terrifyingly androgynous vocoder.

“That would be Bored Of Shit! I'm still working on that one. It's very tongue-in-cheek with a serious message, and it's a different style to the tracks on my EP. It's a statement against general shit. The lyrics are very important to me; everything about the music is important to me.”

She is also conscientious about the way she's perceived, having been misquoted in the past, and lacks the bolshy self-confidence the industry seems to encourage. “I find it kind of cringey to push things too much and say, 'Hey everybody, look at ME...it's all about ME!' I would never try to actively gain hype. It's destructive to both the artist and the music in the longer term. I just make the music I like because I love to be in the studio and I'm always chasing the perfect song.”

She needn't worry; with only one or two tracks floating about cyber space, there have already been a handful of slavering, yet honest, articles and reviews, from dance bible Mixmag to a piece she's particularly fond of in the magazine Flux, paying typical attention to quality over quantity. “It was completely truthful and well written. There were no derogatory monikers or misquotes, which seems to happen a lot in modern music journalism. He talked about the music rather than where I was from and, best of all, he knew a lot about electronic music and bothered to research it.”

I don't know when Dollskabeat will be ready to unleash more of her ethereal, cosmic sounds upon us, but you know when she does, it'll even sound acceptable on YouTube. It's that good.