Cautionary Tales of Youth

Lingua disponibile: inglese

UK singer-songwriter-producer Låpsley has figured out an amazing feat: How to chill out without flat-out ignoring the things that trigger anxiety. "I'm running/ I'm searching," she calmly chants on "Hotel Corridors," even as synth actively pushes and prods. The song cleverly uses a hotel hallway—where everything looks the same on every floor and it's so banal that you can easily get lost—as a metaphor for trying to figure out adulthood "Still trying to find my number/ Still trying to find my room/ It's a cautionary tale of youth/ And I'm running through/ Hotel corridors." Taken on their own, her lyrics could be angst-inducing; but her otherworldly, free-floating, often pitch-shifted voice soothes all. "First time, it's the first time I've/ I've given up my struggle for control," she sings on "32 Floors," a trust exercise of a song that positions her in the realm of The xx. On paper,  the words to throbbing "Smoke and Fire"—"Dive bars/ Jumpin' between cable cars/ Drivin' in the fast lane/ Ridin' on the last train/ Green lanes/ Runnin' through the June rain" is a nerve-wracking litany about dating in London ("The endless park walks and train rides and awkward small talk," Låpsley has said)—might make you want to stay in with the covers over your head. But then the softly pulsing synth comes in like a space-age alarm clock and the call-and-response chorus oozes like warm butter. Genre-wise, Låpsley flirts with jazz fusion ("Nightingale"), soul ("Paradise" and its appealingly reverberating bass), dance-floor chill ("Levitate," which finds the singer channeling the smoke-and-purity of Roberta Flack) and more. "Lifeline" starts off with an a capella, almost Medieval-folk sounding chant: "Are you lonely?/ Are you hurting? … Are you careful?/ Do you get out?/ Are you fearful?" But then it veers into a slow-jam beat punctuated with  bright, brassy synth bursts. "Pandora's Box" blends deep, heavy-bottom rhythm and ethereal vocal layers. "Say I'm What You Need" is an icy-cool ballad you can imagine The Weeknd covering. And R&B flavored "Dial Two Seven" shows Låpsley knows how to have fun. An ode to lost weekends in South Africa (which has the international calling code +27), where she spent the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, it fully embraces letting go: "Dial two sеven in the A.M./ It's north to the Capе by the P.M./ Ride Uber to see him in the East End/ It's sex in the city for the weekend." © Shelly Ridenour/Qobuz