Bar Pandora is the stage name of UK alt-pop artist Charlie Tophill. Bar Pandora’s melodious alt-pop is playfully sewn together from the offcuts of personal experience. Field recordings, journal entries and improvised fragments bop bewitchingly along to a rich undercurrent of harmonic synths, guitars and dynamic beats.

Her eponymous debut EP, released in 2022, was the result of an experimental collaboration with jungle producer Simply Dread. Tophill has continued to work with Simply Dread for her new single, ‘Ultramess’, a “collaboration of artistic-differences” resulting in shimmery electro-pop which ripples with restless energy. ‘Ultramess’ is an alluring snapshot of a cynical romance. “It’s not quite a love song,” Tophill says. “It’s more an ode to the wilful ignorance that leads us to love, and the chaos that follows.”

Tophill’s writing is candid, confessional and refreshingly light, and there’s a mischievous streak that peppers her songs and tempers her occasional intensity. “I’m processing a lot of past mistakes through my music,” she says. “While anticipating future fuck ups which I’m sure will be just as fun to make.”