Bobby’s Daughter releases debut album ‘Heavy Heart’ Credit: Photo by Andy Stur

While Elise Stürup is a local notable in visual art, she’s a newcomer to the music scene with solo electronic-pop vehicle Bobby’s Daughter.

Although she’s a painter by practice and education, music was always in the aura of her creative household growing up. This fledgling project is a dedication to her musical father, Bobby Hickman.

“He is a pianist and composer and a huge source of my musical inspiration,” says Stürup. “He had a near-deadly stroke back in 2018 that took so much from him: his sight, his memory, movement, and his ability to play music. Though to this day, his love for music remains and he is able to still lose himself in it. That was the catalyst for me to take this project seriously. It was a way for me to connect with him.”

On March 14, Bobby’s Daughter will make her full-length debut with maiden album Heavy Heart. Although it’s Stürup’s first formal musical venture, her artistic experience already shows in the stylistic and conceptual maturity of Bobby’s
Daughter. Visually, Stürup cuts a striking figure like a gothic Chappell Roan. Musically, she has an electropop sound of craft and refinement.

Heavy Heart is seven tracks of elegant synth allure. The songs are richly stroked with a 1980s palette but favor the supple dream states of Cocteau Twins and Kate Bush over nervy new-wave angularity. Although highly stylistic, the album is an exercise more in timeless sophistication than art-school flash. This is the work of an experienced artist, not a freshman hobbyist.

Even among the album’s cogent originals, one of the most gripping moments is an obscure cover. “He Needs Me” is a whimsical song sung by Shelley Duvall in the 1980 movie Popeye. In Stürup’s hands, however, it becomes a thing of stunning, unexpected drama.

“In its original form it is love-drunk and silly,” she says. “But even as a kid, the song always stuck out to me as odd and misguided. I wanted to repurpose this song in a way that it portrays instead how we can sometimes unknowingly use the faults of our partners to justify our worth and place in the relationship and how that can be incredibly problematic and easy to mistake for love.”

Heavy Heart will stream everywhere on March 14. On the eve of the big release, Bobby’s Daughter performs a full-band gig next week as part of an excellent all-local bill featuring Alienobserver and headlined by the highly anticipated return of Orlando indie-rock darlings TV Dinner. (8 p.m. Thursday, March 13, Will’s Pub, $10-$15)


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This article appears in Mar 5-11, 2025.

Music columnist.