Greta Isaac has a new monster under her bed, and she’s invited it to the studio

Meet Dolly Zoom: a loud, bratty, smoke-blowing alter ego dripping in lip gloss and menace. She’s the unfiltered id to Greta’s measured superego: a Y2K-soaked, horror-tinged pop shapeshifter, born from creative restriction and raised on chaos. Developed alongside visual artist Karina Barberis, Dolly’s the kind of character who chews bubblegum, stares you down and laughs while the world burns.

Her arrival marks the release of ‘Dolly Zoom’, Greta’s latest EP. It’s a frankenpop collection that splices early 2000s electronic euphoria with high-concept storytelling, the grit of rock and the kind of self-sabotaging confessional that hides a wink behind every punch. Across four tracks – from the spiralling hyperpop of ‘Soft Scoop Talking Dog’ to the unhinged swagger of ‘Car Crash’ – Dolly’s voice contorts and mutates, seductive one second, terrifying the next. Is she a villain? A fever dream? Your new best friend? Greta’s not sure either. But she’s here now, and she’s not leaving quietly.

Photography & Creative Direction: Karina Barberis
Styling: Karina Barberis & Greta Isaac

Dress: Evade House @evadehouse
Hat: Saffy McNamara @saffymcnamara
Shoes: What Meg Found @whatmegfound

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Dolly Zoom is just a girl. A character I developed from a place of restriction – she’s loud, bratty, garish, flirtatious and very, very messy. 

She’s the part of me fuelled by disruption and the pursuit of finding new ways to feel alive. A way to crack open different parts of myself to unleash what lies beneath a rationalised front. 

Taking inspiration from early-00s electronic pop and dance music with interesting harmonic information, we wanted it to feel like a sensory experience that balances the euphoria of electronic music, the grit of rock and the high concept storytelling and playful relatability of pop music. We wanted to use disruptive, enticing lyrics that are a fever dream of humour and shameless brutality. We played around with different voices that made Dolly feel like a shapeshifter, never knowing who she really is or her next move. 

Visually rooted in my fascination with camp horror, the resurgence of Y2K culture, performance and dress up – Dolly Zoom, developed closely with my creative director Karina Barberis – is a Frankenstein of the modern world – She’s the the fourth power puff girl gone wrong, concocted in a potion of performance, sex and mania; desirable but unsettling. 

Confronting, sometimes hilarious in shock value – Dolly is the extremities of myself personified. I don’t know if I hate or love her yet, but she’s sticking around, and I’m excited to get to know her more and more.

‘Soft Scoop Talking Dog’

‘Soft Scoop Talking Dog’ is our janky, explosive introduction to Dolly – born from being trapped within a claustrophobic room of how we think we should look, behave, or speak. Dolly kicks that door down, emerges from the chaos outside, grabs you by the hand and grins at you through a seductive haze of (vape) smoke and promises, she whispers, “Come with me, it doesn’t have to be this way”

Jumpstarted with Dolly’s machine, we wanted to hear a Frankenstein of contradicting and implausible textures – chains, bubbles, elastic bands, drills, a cute music box melody, before erupting into a frenzy inspired by early 2000s electronic dance pop – a musical mirror to who Dolly is – a spinny headfuck that can’t quite be placed. I wanted Dolly’s voice to be ratty, annoying, but still cute and alluring – the kind of voice that confuses me about whether I hate her or want to be her best friend. Matt Zara and Dan Bartlett on production: a hugely fun meshing of minds and creativity. 

‘Movie Star’

Here we really hear Dolly’s Delusion™ kicking into overdrive. Ultimately, it’s a song about the addictive desire for attention, where the extremities are limitless, self-sabotaging is turned up to 100, the stories we tell ourselves and others are grotesquely heightened for dramatic effect, and the need for validation becomes our own personal first language. 

There’s a humanity in Dolly’s voice that peaks through the cracks of the ceramic shell she’s built for herself – she writes in her diary, and imagines a chance in the spotlight and how to get it. She fantasises about the power of shock value in the form of an imagined appearance on a made-up talk show, complete with a made-up audience, and it all starts to fall apart. We played with different voices and characters for this, with lyrical nods to camp and garish plot lines from your favourite horror movies. 

‘Car Crash’

‘Car Crash’ serves as a warning to the people Dolly keeps close – she drives (hasn’t got a license) in her own lane (off the edge of a cliff) and will pull up to the edge of the curb, music so loud it makes your ears just about bleed, and she pulls you into her car with a vigour that translates Regina George’s “Get in loser, we’re going shopping” to “Get in cutie pie, I’m going to ruin your life!”. You’ll have the time of your life, until you don’t. She’s the manic part of us that takes the form of a suspicious salesman with a twinkle in her eye, convincing us that a bad idea can still be exciting. 

Dan Bartlett and I wrote this with the magnetic July Jones – Dan has the ability to make you feel totally immersed in what you’re creating together, so pairing that with July’s incredible ability to tell a story with so much richness and detail left us with a soundscape that feels equally unnerving and exciting – so much of what Dolly represents. What I love is the constant lyrical and sonic push and pull between elevation and descending – like you’re being flung around at the mercy of your circumstances. 

‘Villain’ 

‘Villain’ serves as a time of reckoning for Dolly – a slight bit of awareness surfaces as she looks around at the destruction that surrounds her in the wake of frantically chasing a dream. Here she tells us, maybe I’m not good for you, but I’ll always be here – in the form of that whisper in the back of your head, the monster under your bed, the feeling of fear itself. I imagine her retreating to her grave, adorned with vape stickers and worms, preparing for her resurrection. 

On the day we wrote the song, Dan Bartlett was armed with the beat you hear in the choruses, and immediately we felt inspired. We wrote it with Martin Luke Brown, and the song unravelled into a concept that was a potent, confessional admission of the parts of us that become aware of our destructive behaviours. This song is a concoction of internal struggle and the push and pull of undistinguished tension between self-sabotage and gut instinct. To me, the lyrics feel like flipping between “I’m sorry” and “I’m not sorry”.

Greta Isaac’s EP ‘Dolly Zoom’ is out now. She plays London Omeara on 3rd September – pick up tickets here.