BROOKLYN, NY / MANCHESTER, UK — JULY 22, 2026 — GULFF — the fully remote collaboration between Brooklyn artist and editor Tod Lippy and Manchester electronic musician Owain Kelly (NO CEREMONY///) — releases the single "neighbo(u)r" on July 29, 2026.
Lippy’s altered vocals, Kelly’s pulsating beats, and the band’s signature “digital field recordings” of found sounds scraped from the myriad soundscapes of late capitalism blend seamlessly and energetically in this mesmerizing dance track, the third single from GULFF’s forthcoming self-titled album, out September 25.
The song is a meditation on the difficulty of reaching people across ever-increasing divides (”hey neighbor / it looks like / the fence that runs between us / has gotten higher”). As the track builds, the lyrics evoke the sense of paralysis this separation engenders: "I can't help you / ‘cause I can't reach you / through this."
Lippy wrote the demo for “neighbor(u)r” — his and Kelly's first collaboration — in what was initially a sparer and gloomier register: “to me, it felt like a kind of lament,” he says. But in the middle of the song he inserted a bridge of wailing vocals and distorted MIDI synth that he describes as "a primal scream of frustration and despair” related to the hyper-polarization informing the current political climate. Kelly ran with the track, leaving the stirring, lo-fi bridge intact, and infusing the rest of the song with a driving energy. The duo completed the song through a series of back-and-forths via WhatsApp and file-sharing apps—the same process that would inform the making of every subsequent track on the album.
At one point in this process, they decided to include samples from a State Farm digital ad—a subtle nod to the insurance giant’s long-running campaign to convince consumers that corporations can make “good neighbors.” This strategy of incorporating field recordings immediately struck a chord with Kelly and Lippy, ultimately informing every album track that followed.
“Tod and I knew our collaboration would be socio-politically, culturally and technologically charged, but we wanted to do it from a place of as much understanding and open-mindedness as possible. We don’t want to be condescendingly critical of our times; we want to understand and be in conversation with them. “Neighbo(u)r” in particular feels special to me as it helped clarify the tone and perspective that Tod would come to use in his songwriting approach—an attempt at connection and community despite our barriers, rather than a passive acknowledgment or critique of them.”
The two artists, separated by an ocean and five time zones, have never met in person. They collaborate remotely, folding latency and bandwidth limits into their creative process.
The name “GULFF” comes from the period in early 2025 when the U.S. federal government attempted to rename the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America. "Neighbo(u)r" is the third single from the band’s self-titled debut LP, out September 25.
Learn more gulffonline.com • Bandcamp • YouTube • Streaming Platforms
Press inquiries Fifer Burman • [email protected] • notforeveryone.net
GULFF is Tod Lippy and Owain Kelly. Lippy is an artist, editor, and writer in Brooklyn; he founded the arts and culture publication Esopus, which ran for 25 issues over 15 years and commissioned music from contributors including Grizzly Bear, Neko Case, and Sharon Van Etten. Kelly is a Welsh electronic musician and composer based in Manchester; as one half of NO CEREMONY/// he toured with Pixies and Foals and recorded a Maida Vale session for BBC Radio 1, and his film and theatre work has been commissioned by BAFTA, BFI, Arts Council England, and Sky Arts. They have been collaborating remotely since late 2025 and have never met in person.