Will the floor hold?” Ben Esser asks anxiously, his limpid, soulful brown eyes scanning a room inside his East London home while his slim frame teeters atop a bookcase. But the friends he’s invited over for a raucous celebration this afternoon, so colorful they seem to have stepped straight from a street-style blog, aren’t all that concerned: “Sure it will!” After a nervous pause, he screams and leaps.

The floor holds. Surprisingly, so does Esser’s oversize pompadour. Along with the 23-year-old merrymaker’s delicate digital filigree, buoyant dance tracks spiked with cinematic twists and sing-along hooks, his signature look—part punk, part rockabilly-glam—has attracted serious attention from the likes of Dior Homme mastermind-turned-photographer Hedi Slimane, who recently immortalized the Essex native on his personal website. Evidently, the party follows Esser wherever he goes: music videos for his singles turn into dance-offs, while his sold-out shows have been known to spill out of the club, transforming into unruly street bashes.

Download Esser's single "Headlock" free -- click here!

“I’m definitely an observer of life,” says Esser, however, confirming the darkness hidden beneath all those layers of glitter. “I like showing how people put on a front and hide their sinister side.” Many of the chirpy harmonies from his debut album Braveface are, unexpectedly, about serial killers and racism—even if it all looks and sounds like a party.

Before he and his fellow revelers empty their last cocktails of the night, Esser says, his pensive tone anathema to the lively surroundings, “Growing up, I didn’t want to be where I was. I wanted to escape all of the scrutiny of my small town with music. It was easy to come to London and be what I wanted to be.” And with that, Esser exits into the night, free to be whatever he’d like.

Photo by Hamish Brown.

Esser's Favorite Bar is Shacklewell Arms, London.