Rising: GB makes experimental pop for introverts and overthinkers

Sounds like: Sophistipop for introverts 
Soundtrack for: Questioning the universe 
File next to: ML Buch, Talk Talk, Arthur Russell 
Our favourite song: Era 
Where to find them: @skrrtbike

Recorded live to tape with a four-piece band, GB’s Herzsprung finds the Danish artist embracing risk, improvisational spirit and his own idiosyncratic take on pop.

Gustav Berntsen knows what notoriety feels like. In 2024, he modelled in Jaguar’s surreal Copy Nothing campaign, famously pissing off scores of petrolheads, as well as egregious keyboard warrior Elon Musk. “Everyone I knew was sending me pictures of me in the papers,” the Danish artist recalls of the period, clearly bemused by his brush with virality. “Still, I spent my fee booking out a studio,” he adds with a smirk.

So we have the automotive industry to thank for Herzsprung, Berntsen’s latest LP under the GB moniker. Another strong addition to AD 93’s increasingly intimidating catalogue, it follows 2024’s acclaimed debut Gusse Music – released on the now-defunct indie Posh Isolation – and 2025’s double EP Ressed/Falter. “To me, they’re like collage projects,” Berntsen says of those first two releases. “They’re recordings I pieced together in the studio over time, whereas [making] Herzsprung was about introducing an element of risk into the recording process, recording live to tape with a four-piece band to create something more uplifting.”

Herzsprung doubled as his Master’s project at Copenhagen’s Rhythmic Music Conservatory, a talent incubator so influential that it received its own Guardian profile last year. In fact, Berntsen, who was mainly part of the school’s free-improv faction, made an accidental cameo in the piece, alongside fellow alumni Erika de Casier, Clarissa Connelly and Henriette Motzfeldt of Smerz.

Where the more downbeat Gusse Music combined experimental guitar songwriting with symphonic elements, and Ressed/Falter explored hazy textures and cavernous space, Herzsprung is Berntsen’s approximation of a pop record – albeit one synthesising the influence of Alice Coltrane, Boredoms, Arthur Russell and bands from Brixton’s Windmill scene. 

At the heart of it is Berntsen’s fluid guitar work, honed over years playing in punk bands at Copenhagen’s storied DIY space Mayhem and during his time practising free improvisation at RMC. On Adrenaline, those guitar lines weave in and out of view, tangling around Berntsen’s unruffled baritone, while on Pipe Dream they ebb and flow like waves licking at the shore. Despite his pop-focused mission statement, as an arranger Berntsen is still very much out to surprise, pairing wisps of melodica and bold saxophone with the sudden crash of canned applause during Era.

Written during a spell living in London, Herzsprung bears the city’s influence in fascinating ways. A long-time advocate for the cut-up technique, Berntsen would collect a copy of the Metro newspaper every day and piece together phrases as a starting point for his lyrics. As he points out, it’s not especially surprising that the resulting songs are permeated by a sense of longing and dissatisfaction: “You open a newspaper these days and there’s a lot of horrible shit you can’t really avoid. It just seeps into the songwriting.”

Most pertinently, Berntsen credits Herzsprung with improving his instincts as a producer – a lucrative sideline he’s been pursuing for years with a range of hip-hop and alt-pop artists, including Molina and Mija Milovic. “It was all about bringing some free-jazz improvisational spirit into the recording sessions and following intuition. You know, Steve Albini had this saying that all it takes to make a good record is a well-rehearsed band and one week in the studio – I think there’s some truth in that.”