one4review | On 14, Jul 2025

Edinburgh-based artist Pelowska has been quietly crafting her sound and presence over the last couple of years, recording and sharpening her stagecraft with various support slots around the UK.

Resplendent in black and draped in a cape, she cuts a striking figure—like a Modigliani portrait reanimated for the dream-pop age: tall, angular, expressive, and unmistakably singular.

She opens with Overrated. There are shades of Bat for Lashes in the vocal inflections, and a stage presence that conjures the theatricality of Kate Bush—though she’s working on a small stage she navigates it all with elegant poise.

Next comes the brilliant Safety, a breathless, shimmer of a track with a killer chorus—it wouldn’t sound out of place nestled on an Aurora deep cut. There’s a lightness here, a touch of mystique, and the crowd is fully dialled in.

Rooftops of My Mind shifts gears into a late-80s groove with echoes of New Order. Her voice takes flight, It’s the kind of track you could imagine sound tracking a hazy summer festival moment.

She pauses to introduce Deep Water, a track born from a near-drowning experience in Croatia. What follows is the evening’s emotional high point—a glistening ballad delivered with luminous control. Her phrasing is delicate and every lyric lands with the weight of lived experience.

Resignation builds from the emotional residue, wrapped in a sublime Massive Attack-style arrangement, but it’s the vocals that remain front and centre—soulful, searching, unafraid.
Destroyed, which closes the set on a razor-sharp edge. It plays like a stripped-back rave classic—euphoric and sparse.

Pelowska is a breath of fresh air. Commanding and statuesque, she held the room with a magnetic poise that perfectly matched her sound: mysterious, melodic, and just slightly otherworldly.

She may be described as “one to watch,” but that undersells her. Pelowska is already operating on a level that suggests much bigger stages to dance to soon. If she keeps spinning this intricate, shimmering web of sound and presence, it’s only a matter of time before she breaks out in full.

***1/2
Reviewed by Steve H
Sneaky Pete’s Edinburgh
April 2025