You would think Skyless is a pretty distinctive name and also rather on the nose for a band with shoegazey/dreampoppy inclination but in fact there exist artists with that same name in both dance and hard rock genres and of course streaming services don’t disambiguate them so if you go looking, you’ll find some confusingly diverse releases.
So for clarity, today we’re talking about the young Dublin duo of Sophia Fronda and Ignas Baranauskas who have released a handful of singles since 2024 with the grainy analog image cover art, and not the technicolour space/beach/hellscape imagery. The most recent is the double A-side “Searching”/”About You” which came out a couple weeks ago, the back half of which also came with a fun video filmed using a Nintendo 3DS. Comparisons to fellow Irishmen NewDad will be inevitable, but not at all a bad thing.
The pair did an interview with Post-Burnout last year circa their “Gasoline” single discussing meeting on Bumble (the relationship didn’t work out but the musical partnership continues apace), the band’s name (in honour of Fronda’s late Yorkshire terrier), and their debut EP (or at least their plans for their debut EP six months ago):
It was definitely with the intent of it just being demos and showing it to people. Even now, we call it an EP, but I’m asking Iggy, ‘Can we just call it a mixtape or something?’ Because I feel like EPs, even though they’re not albums, I still feel like most of them are cohesive bodies of work.
Whereas this is very much like a mixtape. It aligns more with what mixtapes are traditionally, which is to showcase an artist’s work, rather than being a cohesive body of work that has a certain theme. I would say, while our music generally has a theme, this body of work doesn’t.
Sophia Fronda, Skyless
Sophia Fronda and Ignas Baranauskas of the Dublin “Nightmare-Pop” Band Skyless Discuss Forming the Band After Meeting on Bumble, Their Recent Single “Gasoline,” How Their Name is an Ode to a Late Pet, Their Plans for Their Debut EP, and the Resurgence of Shoegaze @ Post-Burnout
