Dance/Electronic

Pepper Gomez – “Stop Me Now” [Single Review]

Discovering new depths in electronic music, Pepper Gomez’s “Stop Me Now” delivers an expansive, supple, and seductive opus of three distinct flavors.

Published

1 year ago

05/19/2024

Randy Radic

Pepper Gomez “Stop Me Now” single artwork

Article Views: 1,267

Vocalist, lyricist, poet, and label boss Pepper Gomez (read a fun feature here) unveils her new EP, Stop Me Now, co-written by Gomez and Myles Clayborne, who also produced.

Gomez explains, “It feels like the type of song that you’re just trucking along down the street on a very beautiful day and just thinking the world is a wonderful, wonderful experience and nothing is gonna stop you!”

According to Gomez, she asked Myles Clayborne, whom she calls “magic Myles,” to write a house track for her. She absolutely loved what he came up with. She then asked DJ Rude Minor to do a remix of the track, which turned out to be “friggin fire.” Out of the blue, Numo Dan said he wanted to remix the track, too, and “blows it out of the water.”

When Chicago house music appeared in the mid-’80s, Pepper Gomez was part and parcel of the birthing. After winning the Columbia College AEMMP Student Record label contest with a remake of “Pushin’ Too Hard,” it resulted in her first release (1984) and an underground club hit with the band Master Plan.

She then went on to legendary House label Sunset Records, where both Master Plan’s “Electric Baile” and Matt Warren’s “Way To My Heart,” both released in 1986, went on to chart on Billboard Dance Charts. Now the founder of the label Wake Up! Music Group, Gomez sings by invitation only because producers keep asking her and because she loves to sing and write vocal melodies and lyrics.

A blend of house and EDM elements, “Stop Me Now” rides a propelling rhythm topped by chugging, pulsating layers of synths as Gomez employs the sensual, plush tones of her voice to infuse the lyrics with dreamy textures, revealing piquant, sylph-like timbres, complex, rich, and bewitching.