Veronica Fusaro Hits Gold With Her Uplifting Single "Gold Rush"

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Issue #4

In a speed-driven world, Swiss-Italian artist and composer Veronica Fusaro doesn't leave much of a footprint behind. Her latest single Gold Rush (released September 26) is off to a flying start with infectious energy, rich storytelling, and hooky combinations of indie pop, rock, and cinematic-like sophistication. Recording and produced by Kim Wennerström, the track is the last teaser before Fusaro's long-awaited sophomore album Looking for Connection releases on October 24 — and by all accounts, including Gold Rush, one of the most urgent pop records of the year.

Gold Rush strikes us immediately upon first listen like a runaway anthem. Its beat pounds hard, the type that makes you go before your head catches on. But under the gloss, it is all about the anxiety — the desiring, the seeking, the contemporary hunger for more. Fusaro digs into the legend of California's Gold Rush in converting a 19th-century tale of greed and aspiration into a commentary on our time. She gazes upon fevered quest for validation, sleepless desire to "win big," and the quiet loneliness that usually follows. "Everybody wants to be successful, rich, have it all — and in a hurry," Fusaro states. "Gold Rush is about that high and the price of wanting more."

That cost goes deep. It begins with the Italian words "Dai tira il dado dai" ("Roll the dice, come on"), a brazen invitation to take the risk. Then all the machinery is engaged — glinting synths, pounding bassline, and a screaming vocal that builds up until it is almost explosive. When Fusaro sings “Fast life, I’m living the fast life”, she captures both the thrill and unraveling of ambition, a feeling that hits somewhere between euphoria and exhaustion. It’s the same emotional territory that artists like HAIM, Maggie Rogers, and The Killers often explore: the intoxicating side of ambition, and what happens when the high fades.

The track precedes Jealousy and No Rain No Tears, the highlight tracks which provided an appetizer of the sonic range of Looking for Connection. While those initial releases tipped the nod towards rhythm and love introspection, Gold Rush is the spark — forceful, insistent, and cinematic. It's an open-road-at-night-city-lights song, the sort that makes you recall the mind-blinkingly false promise of success that characterizes so much of contemporary life. You can easily envision it over a shot in Babylon or Euphoria, where burnout and beauty coincide in the same shot.

Fusaro's voice has always functioned by balancing precariously on that tightrope between light and darkness. Her 2023 release All the Colors of the Sky led No. 5 on the Swiss charts, an ethereal collection of tunes that established her as both delicate and bold. She's gone on to perform more than 500 concerts in Europe, the UK, and elsewhere — including at Glastonbury, Montreux Jazz Festival, and a sold-out headlining performance at Kaufleuten in Zurich. Being on stage with Mark Knopfler at the Amphitheater in Nîmes only demonstrated her capability to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the legends.

It's not so much her singing voice — which slides from sultry stillness to full-throated emotion — but the way she crafts sentences. Fusaro's lyrics cut without irony, with unvarnished candor and melody. To that degree, she reminds us of Taylor Swift's 1989-period confessional directness, the movie-studio gloss of Lana Del Rey, and the earthy confessionalism of Clairo. But the actual songs she writes are unique: light but textured, intimate but scratchy.

Searching for Connection is her most intimate work yet, an album that arose from a paradox — more connected than ever before, but lonelier each day. Through its lyrics, she is looking at ambition (Gold Rush), rivalry (Jealousy), and heartbreak (No Rain No Tears) and the incessant din of contemporary living (Slot Machine). It’s a record about the distance between who we are and who we pretend to be — and the fragile hope that maybe, somewhere in between, real connection still exists.

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