100 gecs Get a New Ringtone

Do you listen to 100 gecs? It’s the question all the cuffed-jeans-kids are asking.

Since the 2019 release of their breakthrough album “1000 gecs,” 100 gecs, the experimental duo comprised of Laura Les and Dylan Brady, have risen to cult stardom. Their music is fun. It’s catchy. It simultaneously embraces and challenges the pop genre with its nonchalant maximalism and absurdist momentum — take, for example, the song “gecgecgec,” in which the only lyric for the first half of the track is the syllable “gec,” repeated with rhythm-defying irregularity.

100 gecs released a remix last month of one of their most popular songs, “ringtone.” The song features Charli XCX, Rico Nasty, and Kero Kero Bonito, three mainstream artists with the power to catapult 100 gecs into the hearts and Spotify queues of their larger fan bases.

In the remix, 100 gecs are, like, 75 gecs — they tone down some of the more grating processing effects used at the end of the original version of “ringtone” and in many of their other songs. The transitions lack the build and release of tension that the climax of the original “ringtone” does so well; rather, one verse stops and another begins as if each singer is passing off a baton to the next. Without the original song’s nonstop energy, the more relaxed transitions create a feeling of spontaneous conversation perfectly suited to a collaborative project. 100 gecs posted a video for the remix on YouTube in which Les and Brady pass paper cutouts of their collaborators’ heads taped to popsicle sticks back and forth, illustrating which artists are featured at any given time. When Les, her voice distorted by autotune, asks, “Wait, Charli, can you sing the chorus again please?” we are reminded once again of the song’s fun, collaborative vibe.

The highlight of the remix is easily Rico Nasty’s verse. In the middle of the song, the beat cuts out and the rapper picks up with a change of pace. “I think I might be addicted to your kisses,” she sings, to swelling static and a rhythm unlike any other in the song. The production mirrors the rap-metal style of her more recent albums. Likewise, Kero Kero Bonito’s verses sound about as Kero-Kero-Bonito as one could imagine, with whimsical pop vocals and the occasional ring of a telephone in the background.

The song succeeds as a remix in that 100 gecs manage to build upon their original “ringtone” without replacing it. The “ringtone” remix may be a more laid-back, less processed version of the original — but it’s no less fun.

— Staff writer Marie A. Ungar can be reached at marie.ungar@thecrimson.com.