When 100 Gecs announced they were taking time apart after 2023’s 10,000 Gecs, the reaction was something between mild panic and genuine curiosity about where the two members would land on their own. Laura Les had already started hinting at solo directions. Dylan Brady, the producer half of the duo, had the more interesting question hanging over him: could he hold listener attention without the carnival chaos of the full Gecs operation?
Needle Guy, a four-track EP out via his own Dog Show Records in partnership with Atlantic, is a confident answer – and a deliberately small one. Brady is not trying to prove anything grand here. He is making songs that sound like late-night producer sessions that got too good to leave in the vault.
Lead track “Throat Song” opens with something that feels almost vulnerable by Brady’s standards: a minimal beat and a vocal line that lingers longer than expected. There is texture without bombast. The hyperpop machinery is still present but it is idling rather than revving. By the time the track finds its footing, you realize Brady is good at restraint in ways the Gecs format rarely required of him.
“Stay High” is the clearest indication of where his solo instincts want to go – cleaner production, more deliberate hooks, less of the intentional chaos that made 100 Gecs feel like falling into a pinball machine. It is not a betrayal. It is a person who has been operating at maximum intensity finally exhaling.
“Ashley,” featuring Afrojack, is the EP’s wildest detour and its least convincing. The collaboration feels like it came from a different project entirely – the kind of feature that happens when labels want a streaming event rather than an artistic one. It does not ruin the EP, but it is the track you skip on the second listen.
The title track “Needle Guy” closes things out with the kind of skittering, brain-worm energy that made 100 Gecs unavoidable in the first place. It is a reminder that Brady knows exactly how to construct something that installs itself in your head without your permission. He has just decided, on this EP, to demonstrate the range around that skill rather than lean into it exclusively.
Needle Guy is not a statement. It is a signal. Brady is figuring out what he sounds like when he does not have a collaborator who can push back and redirect. On the basis of four songs, what he sounds like is pretty good – precise, stylistically curious, and clearly not done yet. The full album, whenever it comes, is going to be the real test. This is a promising opening bid.
