Chloe Qisha on being a proud pop girly, building her artistic world, and sharing sophomore EP 'Modern Romance' • Interview • DIY Magazine

“I’ve always been a pop girly,” Chloe Qisha says, firmly. “I’ve never understood people that have not appreciated pop to some degree. It’s not taking itself too seriously - so why are you?”

While the 27-year-old Londoner may have waited until she’d picked up degrees in psychology and communications before answering pop’s call, she’s since made quick work of building an arsenal of witty dancefloor fillers, first with last autumn’s self-titled EP and now, six months later, with follow-up, ‘Modern Romance’.

“There’s a magic in the air to this one,” she says happily over Zoom of the impending release. “Last year when we did [‘Chloe Qisha’] it was exciting, but because there’s actually a good amount of people now to receive it, it’s a different feeling.”

That first project charted the evolution of her journey with co-writer and producer Rob Milton, with a back half that favoured “more indie, guitar-ey pop” akin to the Olivia Rodrigos or Holly Humberstones of the world. The EP didn’t take long to attract attention, and its standout hit ‘I Lied, I’m Sorry’ (anointed by a Kelly Clarkson Kellyoke cover, no less) came to signpost the direction Chloe’s subsequent music was headed in.

Born from falling down a “Talking Heads, LCD Soundsystem rabbit hole”, new wave influences echo across ‘Modern Romance’, which Chloe summarises as “lyrically and conceptually a step up” from her first outing. Opener ‘21st Century Cool Girl’ showcases her and Rob’s ear for an infectious chorus, while the title track bounces along on a beat reminiscent of Chappell Roan’s sleeper smash ‘HOT TO GO!’. Elsewhere, breezy “outlier” track ‘The Boys’ (written with another collaborator, James Earp) offers a somewhat mellower but no less magnetising portrait of a “stupid teenage fool” wrapped up in an adolescent crush.

“[‘The Boys’] was a bit of a wildcard, and there were polarising views on whether she was a good enough song to end up on this body of work,” Chloe admits. “But once Rob did his magic on it, it was very clear to us that she certainly had her place, and she’s actually one of my favourite songs now.”

As well as reaching for more ‘80s touchstones - a natural instinct, given it was the music she grew up on - ‘Modern Romance’ sticks closer to a central theme: the highs and lows of love and dating, punctuated with pop culture references - including quips about Wrestlemania, doing the big shop, and the mounting epidemic of aspiring DJs. Much of Chloe’s inspiration (see: the aforementioned teenage fool) is mined from her own adolescence and early 20s - the “crazy crash-out period” before her frontal lobe developed.

“I’m a bit older and wiser now,” she grins. “I feel like I’m very settled within myself and I know who I am, so I’m able to look back and actually appreciate the person I was - even the super embarrassing, cringey mistakes. I can look back and laugh, so I don’t deep it that much now.”

“I feel like I’m very settled within myself and I know who I am, so I’m able to look back and actually appreciate the person I was — even the super embarrassing, cringey mistakes.”

Beyond the music itself, Chloe’s “world”, as she refers to it, stands out for the strength of its visuals - think chic, oversized mens’ tailoring with a bold, red-centred colour palette. “That stuff gets me going so much!” she says. “It’s a similar endorphin hit to when you leave a session knowing you’ve written a banger.”

So far, each of her singles has been accompanied by its own fully conceptualised video, with Chloe dancing either around her bedroom, in a stairwell beneath a hovering drone or, in the case of ‘Sexy Goodbye’, on the back of a moving bin lorry as it trundled through East London. Most have been a collaboration with creative director Lillie Eiger, who came on board when the project was still “just a few demos on a SoundCloud link”.

“I specifically said to her: I don’t want to be a pretty artist singing a pretty song in pretty places, and then stitch that all together and have a three-minute video,” Chloe recalls. “I think the music is incredible, and deserves me pushing myself out of my comfort zone.”

Chloe’s attitude is marked by modesty (“I’m still kind of ugly dancing my way through life,” she insists), but also a quiet determination and pride - if only because she sees the project as the output of a “small, beautiful team of gorgeous humans”, including Rob and Lillie, of which she is but a single cog. “It takes a village and it’s a lot of work, but I’m so glad that it’s being appreciated; that’s all I can ask for,” she beams. “I still feel like we’re growing at a really good pace: not too crazy, but also it’s still super rewarding.”

Indeed, while her rise has been impressive - our chat comes less than a year after she released debut single and anguished piano ballad, ‘VCR Home Video’, and she’s set to round off 2025 with a headline gig at London’s Village Underground - Chloe hasn’t had the crazy, singular viral moment a lot of artists yearn for. And that, she maintains, has been a blessing.

“I think in Covid times it was definitely something that was at the forefront of everyone’s minds, because it seemed like the easiest way to break and to get an audience fast. But I think since then we’ve seen the repercussions for artists that rose the wave of a viral moment and now maybe are struggling to sell tickets or to actually have people listen to their original music,” she muses. “I have personal friends that have done the viral thing, and now I don’t think they would really recommend for that to happen super early on as a developing artist.”

For now, at least, she’s perfectly happy to keep on going as she knows how: hand-in-hand with her trusted collaborators, building the audio-visual world of Chloe Qisha one ‘80s-indebted, irresistible chorus at a time.

‘Modern Romance’ is out now via VLF Records/Are You Serious?.

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