Swedish producer, DJ, and artist GALANTIS, aka Christian “Bloodshy” Karlsson, has spent more than two decades helping shape the evolution of modern dance-pop. Now, after years of pushing against convention, Karlsson is entering one of the most creatively adventurous chapters of his career with The Devil’s Tax Return, a new project built around reinvention, experimentation, and the freedom to approach songwriting without boundaries.
Today, August 4, GALANTIS unveils his reimagining of Frankie Valli’s timeless 1960s classic “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You,” transforming one of pop music’s most recognizable melodies into a frenetic electronic production. Rather than simply updating the original, Karlsson dismantles its familiar architecture and rebuilds it around distorted textures, explosive synths, and a chaotic interpretation of the song’s iconic chorus.
The track serves as a standout preview of The Devil’s Tax Return – Volume 1, arriving October 16 via Counter Records, the Ninja Tune imprint. The six-track collection revisits songs from across different eras and genres, with Karlsson approaching each one less as a traditional cover and more as an opportunity to interrogate what made the original composition work in the first place.
“‘Can’t Take My Eyes Off You’ isn’t from the same era as the other songs on the EP, but it felt right to include because it’s so timeless, and where it ended up sonically just seemed to fit,” says Christian Karlsson. “From a songwriting perspective, I’d always found that song so interesting and unique. I wanted to take it apart and put it back together to understand what made it so special.”
That philosophy runs through the wider The Devil’s Tax Return project. Volume 1 features six reworks, including the previously released “Stay Alive” and “Do You Mind.” Both tracks revisit songs connected to a formative period in Karlsson’s career, when he was beginning to explore a greater sense of creative freedom while developing Miike Snow.
The project reflects a period when Karlsson was stepping away from the formulaic structures and expectations that came with his extensive history of pop radio success. Rather than following established songwriting conventions, The Devil’s Tax Return gives him room to pull apart familiar songs, experiment with their underlying structures, and rebuild them through a distinctly electronic lens.
“Can’t Take My Eyes Off You” follows “Stay Alive,” a melancholy reinterpretation of José González, and “Do You Mind,” which transforms Paleface featuring Kyla’s 2007 UK bassline and R&B classic into something new. Together, the releases establish the sonic and conceptual direction of Karlsson’s latest chapter.
The project’s source material stretches far beyond Frankie Valli, José González, and Kyla, with The Devil’s Tax Return also drawing from artists including The Killers, Feist, and The War on Drugs. The result is a deliberately eclectic body of work that treats each song as raw material for experimentation rather than something that needs to be preserved exactly as it was.
The new music arrives alongside an active live schedule for GALANTIS, who recently delivered festival performances at Electric Forest and VELD, as well as the San Francisco edition of MIDSOMMAR. The event represents Karlsson’s celebration of friendship, new beginnings, and living life in full bloom, with upcoming editions scheduled for Chicago, New York City, and Denver this summer.
Additional performances are set for Singapore, St. Louis, New Orleans, and Dallas, as well as Portland, with more dates expected to be announced.
With “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You,” GALANTIS continues to embrace the creative freedom at the heart of The Devil’s Tax Return. By taking a song that has endured for generations and tearing apart its familiar structure, Karlsson demonstrates that reinvention can be just as powerful as nostalgia — and that even the most recognizable pop songs can still reveal something new when approached from a completely different angle.
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