Isabel van Gelder

Amsterdam, modelling, and a decision at eighteen

Isabel van Gelder was born in Amsterdam in 2003 and grew up in the city. Before music she worked as a model, a career she has since set aside to concentrate on writing and performing full time. She has said that when she finished school at eighteen she weighed up university and other options, but that music was the thing that made her happiest, and she chose to commit to it.

Her first single, 'Pieces', arrived in 2023 and introduced her to the Dutch pop scene as a writer of slow, confessional songs with a soft vocal at the centre. Early recordings were made with the production duo Kevin & Patrick and with Jesper Hoekstra. In 2024 she was selected for Popronde, the travelling Dutch showcase circuit that sends new acts around venues in cities across the country, and the same year she released 'Run', 'She'll Be Alright' and 'Feel Again'.

The influences she names are not the ones a listener might guess from the records. In interviews she has cited Radiohead and Daft Punk as the music she grew up on, alongside George Michael and Christina Aguilera. What carried over was less a sound than an attitude to melody and voice: she has no formal vocal training and has said she values emotional honesty in a take over technical precision.

'Die For You' and the year the numbers arrived

The turn came in 2025. 'My Silly Boy' and 'Die For You' were released over the summer, followed by 'Bathroom Floor', and 'Die For You' in particular travelled far beyond the Netherlands. The Eurosonic Noorderslag festival's own biography dates her breakthrough to a track released in April 2025, and by the end of the year her singles were each being counted in millions of streams, with clips on Instagram and TikTok reaching similar figures. Her Instagram following is now around a million.

In August 2025 Forbes ran a question-and-answer piece with her tied to the lyric video for 'Die For You', in which she talked about her development as a writer and her ambitions outside the Netherlands. The magazine's writer singled the song out as one of the standout releases of the year. For an artist who at that point had barely toured, it was an unusual amount of international attention, and it set up the busiest twelve months of her career.

Minor Details: a debut EP presented at Paradiso

Her debut EP, Minor Details, was released in January 2026. It gathers five of the earlier singles and adds two new tracks, and it is the record that most people arriving at her shows now know front to back. She presented it on Thursday 22 January 2026 in the Upstairs room at Paradiso in Amsterdam, with doors at 19:00 and the show at 19:30. The venue's own listing described her as making emotional, dreamy pop with a voice that is soft but lands, and lyrics that feel like being allowed to read her diary.

The same month she played Eurosonic Noorderslag in Groningen, the January industry festival that has launched a long line of Dutch and European acts. The Dutch music platform 3voor12 described the set as heartfelt ballads with a strong vocal focus and an understated stage presence, and characterised the EP as a work of subtlety, emotional layering and dreamy pop arrangements. That is still the fairest short description of what she does.

A first European headline tour followed in February 2026 and, according to the promoters' copy for the current run, sold out within weeks. She also worked her way round pop venues in the Netherlands and Belgium during the first half of the year, which is where she has said she really learned to perform. As she put it in one feature, she has only recently started playing live and thinks it is one of the best things ever.

Columbia, Jake Gosling and an hour in London

Early in 2026 she released 'Obsession', and then signed to Columbia Records. Her first single for the label, 'I Don't Want To Fall In Love Again', came out in May 2026. She described the deal as a dream come true, working with a label that has been home to so many artists she admires.

The single was written in London with the producer Jake Gosling in roughly an hour, which she says is how her best songs tend to happen. The circumstances were stranger than the speed. She wrote it while still in a relationship that was falling apart, and has said the lyric was foreshadowing how she was really feeling on some unconscious level. The song is less a heartbreak number than a statement about not wanting to repeat a pattern; in the same interview she said she is genuinely happy being by herself and focusing on her own needs and feelings.

Away from that session, her most frequent collaborator is the Dutch producer Blanks. The Columbia signing has not changed the shape of the music so far: vocal-led pop, dreamy production, lyrics close enough to feel overheard. A profile published on 26 July 2026 by Music Musings & Such framed her as an artist on the verge of a much bigger year, and the touring schedule bears that out.

On the road: the EU and UK Tour 2026, then North America

The EU and UK Tour 2026 opened in Dublin on 1 September and ran through Glasgow on 3 September at the Poetry Club at SWG3, Manchester on 4 September at the Deaf Institute and Birmingham on 5 September at O2 Institute3. London follows on Tuesday 8 September at Dingwalls in Camden, a 19:00 start priced at £15 with Kissmet in support. The Birmingham and London dates were reported as sold out ahead of time.

From there the route crosses the Channel: La Maroquinerie in Paris on 10 September, Strom in Munich on 14 September, Cologne on 16 September, a slot at Reeperbahn Festival in Hamburg during its 16 to 19 September run, and Lido in Berlin on 19 September at 19:30. The tour then moves east and south, with BARdzo Bardzo in Warsaw on 22 September, Café V Lese in Prague on 23 September, Babylon in Istanbul on 26 September, Sala Villanos in Madrid on 29 September and La Nau in Barcelona on 30 September.

The autumn brings a first run of North American dates: the Underground at the Drake Hotel in Toronto on 21 October, Bar le Ritz PDB in Montreal on 23 October, Mercury Lounge in New York on 26 October, Beat Kitchen in Chicago on 28 October and The Echo in Los Angeles on 5 November. These are small rooms by design, the sort of clubs where a rising act plays to a few hundred people who already know the songs.

That, by her own account, is what her first London headline show felt like: the whole crowd knew every word, a moment she has described as surreal. Nothing from the current run has yet been reviewed in depth by the music press, so the best guide to the shows remains the 3voor12 account from Eurosonic and the venues' own descriptions. Expect the ballads from Minor Details, the 2025 singles that broke her, and the newer Columbia material, sung with a great deal of focus and very little fuss.