love a good story
Dark, industrial, brooding and haunting. This song scares me – which probably has more to do with the accompanying video, but a great video it is. It feels as though I am falling down into the abyss of hell when listening and to be honest, when I am listening to it, I’m happy to just … Continue reading “JUTRØ – Travva (voc. LINDA)”
Dark, industrial, brooding and haunting. This song scares me – which probably has more to do with the accompanying video, but a great video it is.
It feels as though I am falling down into the abyss of hell when listening and to be honest, when I am listening to it, I’m happy to just keep falling.
One of the first thoughts that came to me when I listened to Låpsley’s first album, “Long Way Home”, was just how ahead of her years she sounds. She has the air of an artist who has been around for over twenty years or more, when in fact she herself is less than that at the time of writing. At the age of just nineteen, she has already laid the first stones of what will hopefully be a very long, and no-doubt will be a very successful, career.
My first taste of her music was from her 2015 E.P. Understudy and it was the opening song “Falling Short”, which was the only song from that E.P. to feature on “Long Way Home”, that immediately got me hooked on her minimalist arrangements and stunning voice.
I can honestly say that she is an artist who I could pick out of a thousand, identifying her with confidence based on her voice alone. She is one of those singers whose voice you simply can not forgot once you’ve heard it.
The opening song “Heartless” serves as a welcoming, calm introduction to this interesting, boundary-pushing album, “Long Way Home”. “Heartless”, like many of this album’s songs, is centred around a calm piano harmony with Låpsley’s voice up front. This isn’t, however, a run-of-the-mill piano ballad as it contains, as does a lot of the album, some really effective uses of odd samples and interesting production techniques.
“Hurt Me”, the album’s next song, opens with a synthesized staccato melody, which really drove me into the album and introduced me to the kinds of sounds that I just wasn’t expecting until now. Even at the end of the song there are odd little samples that work perfectly in a really weird kind of way. By now I knew that Låpsley was an artist not only ahead of her own years, but that of many of her contemporaries too.
I’m not going to mention every song, as I’d like you to find out for yourself, but I do just want to say something about the third song “Falling Short”, the video for which I have included at the end. The lyrics in this song are some of the most cryptic for me. The lyrics seem extremely personal and the way that she delivers them serves to enhance that feeling. In all honesty it was only as I write this now that I have actually gone and looked at the actually songs lyrics as a whole. This song’s lyrics – along with the rest of the album’s – can be enjoyed through simply listening to them being sang, without any real thought into what they mean. Looking deeper into those meanings is like peeling back the onion layers of this complex, compelling artist.
One month till February
Keep on holdin’ on
And I know it’s short
And I know it’s shortAnd it’s times like these
And it’s days like these
And it’s times like these
And it’s days likeIt’s been a long time comin’
Falling Short from Long Way Home
But I’m falling short
It’s been a long time comin’
But I’m falling short
As the album approaches its half -way point with the fifth song, “Operator (He doesn’t call me)”, the album’s sound took an up-tempo turn. This song’s story centres around a woman whose boyfriend doesn’t call her. Instead she finds herself in contact more with the phone operator, and so considers falling in love with the operator instead. It’s a fun song with it’s routes in one of the most boring aspects of life – being kept on hold. Låpsley seems to have the ability to find little nuggets of inspiration in unlikely places.
He doesn’t call me so put me through operator
Operator (He doesn’t call me) from Long Way Home
Maybe I’ll leave him and fall in love with you operator
My baby doesn’t call me so put me through operator
So tell me should I leave him and fall in love with you operator
One of my favourite songs on “Long Way Home” is called “Station”. It is one of the most minimal as I remember that has everything that I love in her music – her voice sang with shifted pitches, layered to hamonize with each other; great sound effect samples used in refreshing ways – notable one which sounds like a pitch-shifted dog woof; minimal instruments that make her voice almost acapella. “Station” is beautifully haunting and would serve as a perfect introduction if one hadn’t ever heard Låpsley’s music before.
The last but one song, “Leap”, reminds me of something from Radiohead’s Amnesiac album, with beautiful echoing synth sounds with a basey, driving beat – not fast – just driving.
Versatility and and a desire for experimentation – this is what Låpsley brings to her craft. I love as well how she doesn’t settle on a set of default samples across the album. Throughout it you will keep hearing new and unusual sounds that never feel disjointed or mish-mashed. I get the impression that she has toiled for hours and hours over the years, building up a unique sensibility for how to put these sounds together in really interesting ways.
Something I’ve also noticed, listening closely whilst writing this review, is how much more I’m hearing around the main songs that I don’t remember hearing before – the odd sample or harmonisations. This album really is a gift that keeps on giving.
The restaurant at the nature centre is like a rowdy feeding pit.
This week I had the pleasure of not only publishing my first interview, but also to have interviewed one of my favourite artists at the moment – London-based, electronic royalty, Queen of Hearts – real name Liz Morphew. Her debut album, Cocoon, is currently getting a daily playing on my headphones and you should check it out too! You can read an earlier recommendation of this album that I posted a while back.
I also found out on her Facebook page, that Liz is doing the London Marathon next month. If you’ve got a spare moment, head over to her donation page and help her reach her target.
A big thank you to Liz for taking the time to answer those questions. I remember The Alchemist being the book I happened to read that got me into reading regularly. And Say Lou Lou – love that album. I love their single “Better in the Dark” too.
Also a great joke – music-related too! You could say it was a ‘Killer’ joke!
Snakes don’t belong in Alaska.
Vulcan Raven — Metal Gear Solid
Just what I’d expect from someone with the same codename as the boss.
— Metal Gear Solid
There’s no one I’d rather have in a fox hole than you.
Solid Snake — Metal Gear Solid
I can’t believe I’m being hit on by the famous solid snake.
Mei Ling — Metal Gear Solid
Restarting this fine game series and am gonna live message my progress. Just cuz.
The bohemian style of artistic life has always seemed like a very romantic one to me. The idea of an artist just upping and heading to a remote place for some unknown amount of time with nothing but a journal and a guitar and just writing for themselves. In today’s world of rushing about and the constant flow of nauseating crap of social networks, it would be easy for you to assume that that way of life was all but gone from the world.
Well you’d be wrong. Zella Day is flying that flag for me.
She embodies many things that I love about great artists and song writing – interesting, sometimes cryptic, lyrics; a fashion sense from days of old but made very much her own; music that is greater than the sum of its parts – she is the kind of artist that the world needs.
On first listening to “Kicker”, I was immediately hooked with the sound of the guitar in the opening of the song “Jerome”. Before I’d even heard her stunning voice, my first thoughts were that if the Roadhouse in Twin Peaks had a rock night, Zella Day and band would go down really well. This first song also demonstrates her vocal abilities – varying her style throughout the song from verse to chorus to coda. From whispery, almost Stevie Nicks-esque sounding, to the controlled screaming of the songs title in the chorus.
The next song, “High” brings more focus to the massive drums and chugging rhythm guitar and does, by all accounts, have the parts needed to qualify as a rock song. But to label it as just a rock song, or a rock album for that matter, I feel would cheapen the album. Zella is bringing so much more to the mix that I don’t think a simple label is possible. It would be like calling Kate Bush simply a pop singer.
“1965” changes the sound up by focussing more on piano from the start and then using more minimal drums and climbing strings throughout.
“Hypnotic” is one of my favourite songs on “Kicker”, with one of my favourite riffs, and at just 4 seconds shy of 3 minutes, this song is as catchy and full of a hit song as they come.
“Mustang Kids” changes things up again with half of the vocals provided by Baby E, telling the story of a small no-name town with nothing good to do in it.
Small town gang got nothing to do
We got guns, got drugs, got the sun and the moon
We got big city plans but it always rains
And the sheriff is a crook and knows me by nameI said momma was insane and daddy was a criminal
Mustang Kids, Kicker
I grew up in a trailer with a dream of fucking centerfolds
Now I’m making money experimenting with chemicals
The fact I’m still alive is why I still believe in miracles
With “Jameson” we can hear a beautiful finger-picked guitar ballad that oozes country music sensibilities – with that slide guitar sound that is so engrained into country music. When you hear a song like “Mustang Kids” and then “Jameson”, you really get a sense of Zella’s versatility as an artist.
Easily my favourite song on “Kicker” is the album’s penultimate track, “Sweet Ophelia”, which is one of those songs that build up to a huge chorus with a slightly breakbeat drum beat that reminds me of Muse’s “Supermassive Black Hole” beat. The musical arrangement serves to complement Zella’s voice to the final big chorus of the album and leads perfectly into the final song, “Compass”.
“Compass” is the perfect final song for an album with this much energy. A piano ballad that brings Zella’s voice to the forefront as she leads us back to our daily lives that more enriched.
All of Zella’s songs, whether they be huge anthemic belters or mellow acoustic ballads, are all rooted in quality song writing and a unique vision. I also learned through watching her video series, Day X Day, that she writes all of her songs on guitar first – with the idea that they could all be played acoustic with no accompaniment if she wanted.
When you hear a song like “Hypnotic”, it may be hard to imagine it stripped back to vocal and guitar, but when you listen to her play it like this, you realise that her songs could either fill a stadium or a coffee shop. She is the very definition of a versatile artist.
I hate to use the term “X-Factor”, as that phrase is now synonymous with crap TV, but Zella Day definitely has that unknown ingredient that makes her musical vision and style special.
She is an artist whose career I will be following closely, and I strongly suggest you do too.
@davidpeach1 All great actors eventually transcend the screen. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7lUCghDJ7w
This is amazing. I am genuinely addicted to this song. I imagine him as Jack Bauer singing about his wife.
