Emerging wide-eyed from a twisted fairytale, Golden Curls (St. Louis, MO) bends traditional pop music into warbly new shapes. Songwriter and producer Sarah Downen crafts her sound between innocence and darkness by pairing bells and pitch-bent flutes with heavily distorted synths and other-worldly samples. Her lyrics, ranging from the deeply personal to narrative interpretations of Swedish fairytales, are delivered softly, as if sharing a dark secret. Bandmates Stephen Favazza (guitar) and Philip Zahnd (drums) complete the story with swirling textures and anchored beats, hypnotizing you to forget your introspective hang-ups and dance.