Subscribing works – being a member works – being a patron works too: Become a Patron!
Happening this week – recorded earlier today (May 17th) via Huw Stephens BBC 6 Music program – Summer festival season is starting up. Lots of interesting music to be had – this one The Great Escape Festival, which is focusing mostly on new faces and new music.
Liz Lawrence has been around for a few years and she is a welcome addition to the festival lineup.
Line Of Best Fit ran a great piece on her, which pretty much sums up what’s happening and where she’s going:
With a career that has seen her previously support Ani DiFranco on tour and collaborate with indie stalwarts Bombay Bicycle Club, Liz Lawrence has retained a budding presence for the best part of ten years, both on her own merit and as one half of electro-pop duo Cash + David.
The Stratford-upon-Avon-born singer-songwriter is, as such, no stranger to incorporating synth elements into her work, albeit sparingly in a solo capacity until this point. Titularly inspired by the scale of artist Tacita Dean’s work The Montafon Letter, third album The Avalanche exchanges the plaintive notes of Pity Party, drawing instead on the instability of adolescence via careening certified bops. Decamping to the West Midlands from London early last year, she would harness the experience to reassess her upbringing in a revised if not sugar-coated light.
A self-built studio dubbed ‘The Coffin’, constructed where her grandfather’s shed once stood, offered the space to record; a repurposing that could equally be applied to the theme of the album itself, one that revisits formative years with a renewed outlook painted by intervening experience. Bold and brash at times but with a guarded charm, Lawrence is sonically at her most carefree, willing to embrace a danceability that has ample opportunity to shine on tracks such as “Drive” and “Violent Speed”, shuffling between the art pop of Bat for Lashes and Lykke Li in its peppy paced ethereality. An upbeat inclination returns in the form of irresistible 80s synth-paved material such as “Simple Pleasures”, which sways through jolting guitar licks and electronic soundscapes set to endearingly everyday lyrics: “I got a 106 but at least it’s a car”. Kate Bush-veering tones prevail elsewhere on “Birds” and “Saturated”, reflecting a similar effervescence.
Extra added bonus is the release of her new album, Peanuts (which drops on June 5th) and her tour which starts tomorrow (May 18). You can pre-order Peanuts via her website: Liz Lawrence Official Store
Good stuff – good times (fingers crossed) and some clues it’s going to be a great Festival season this summer.
Enjoy – buy the album, go to a Festival, fill your head with good music.
