FEATURE:
Revisiting…
Låpsley – Through Water
__________
AN album…
I feel should have been shortlisted for a Mercury Prize in 2020, Låpsley's Through Water is magnificent. She has a new album, Cautionary Tales of Youth, coming out in January 2023. The Southport artist born Holly Lapsley Fletcher is one of her finest and most consistent young artists. A sensational talent who mixes Arty Pop, Soul, and different genres into something very much her own, I am looking forward to her forthcoming third studio album. Not only did Through Water (released on 20th March, 2020) not get the attention it deserved. I think it did not really earn all the acclaim and positivity it warrants. Thinking about it, the album was released just before the pandemic was declared in the U.K. It must have been frustrating for her to have this exciting album out and not being able to perform to the fans! Go and check out Cautionary Tales of Youth, but also check out Låpsley's brilliant second studio album. It is a great taster and introduction to the stunning artist – though her debut, 2016’s Long Way Home, is also remarkable. It sounds like her third album might be a slight departure and evolution in terms of themes and sounds. New songs like Dial Two Seven suggest we are going to get a terrific album in January! I will get to a couple of reviews for Through Water soon. Before then, I want to source an interview from 2021.
“You’ve been creating music for quite some time now, only 17 when you started releasing songs on Soundcloud, going on to tour the world and release two albums, as well as a number of EPs and singles. You must have been on quite a journey! How do you reflect on your career thus far?
I do want to look back and give myself a hug when I was 18, or 19. I don’t think I necessarily got the support I should have. But now having gone through all of that and I have the support system around me, I’m very proud of the work I’ve made. Despite the tough times, it’s the music that carries you through, and it’s also the support of the fans. I put that first over frets I had about the way I looked, my weight, about women in the industry, I’ve always put the music first and I think it’s held me in good stead. I’ve held the most important things close to my heart, which has kept me doing it because I think often it’s very easy to burn out. Especially when you enter the industry quite young, and you’re put through the motions, it’s very intense. But now we’re at the other end, I feel like this is the start of my career in a way. I’m working on the third album, it’s pretty much written, I just need to finish the production. I think in order to write quite fluidly and to write a lot and to finish up something like an album, you need to be in a good mental space. And I think the fact that I’ve done that it’s just testament to how much of a good place I feel like I’m at right now.
You took full control of your 2020 record, ‘Through Water’ and said it was the first time you felt like an ‘artist’. How important do you think it is that musicians have autonomy over their music?
It’s incredibly empowering. And also, the people around you who aren’t creatives don’t necessarily understand, and it’s not their fault, they just work in the industry and you are the artist. No one ever turned around and said to me, ‘actually, if you want to be like your idols, you’ve got to put the time in, you’ve got to put the hours. You’re not just gonna get there because you got a top 10 or because doors opened’. It takes hours in the studio trying to work out, and also working on your writing and assessing. Writing is like communication, you’re basically turning your life experiences into words and into art and the more you do it, the more you feel comfortable in it and the more you push yourself, the more you find yourself. I wish someone told me that it would take time, and it’s okay not to have all the answers. I think that would have helped me. So I mentor artists now and I try and tell them that shit.
A year on, how do you feel about your ‘Through Water’ record now?
Oh, my God, I love it. It’s funny, I never listen back to my own music because I’m always on to the next thing, so I was thinking, ‘oh, I wonder what songs I should play for the All Points East festival’. So I just listened to my record, from front to back the other day when I was going on a run. And I was like, ‘go get ’em, girl! God, this is so cool man!’. I left this industry, now I could look back and just be so happy with that piece. I’ve never had that job satisfaction in my life, so I have nothing but pride.
So what can we expect from your next set of music?
There’s two new singles next. This one song is about opportunities closing, like doors opening and doors closing. And then there’s another song about dating in lockdown, and connection and someone seeing you through all the bullshit that is the dating world. So just some real early 20 shit. Classic Lapsley, electronic. I think it makes sense that it’s an extension of ‘Through Water’. I think the album is going to be slightly more of an indie electronic direction. This is more minimal electronic pop, these two tracks”.
To round off, I will drop in a couple of the positive reviews for Through Water. A terrific album from Låpsley, it is exciting to see what she produces on her new album. If you have not heard this gem from 2020, go back and listen. It is disappointing that some did not rave and give it full praise – though I guess that is the way with many albums. This is what DIY had to say in their review of Through Water:
“Sometimes, an album’s artwork tells you everything you need to hear about the work that lies within. On 2016 debut ‘Long Way Home’, Låpsley stares you down from the sleeve, the defiant look on her young face setting the scene for her sad-synth mediations on disappointing relationships and internal hurt. On ‘Through Water’ she’s stopped demanding answers and has given herself over to the elements - a deep dive of commitment, going wherever the waves might take her.
The leap has definitely paid off - her inimitable voice thrives in the woozy dancehall and afrobeat-inspired ‘First’ and the big pop confidence of ‘Womxn’, but also knows when to take a step back, peppering the record with spoken word segments and heartfelt mantras that tie the whole thing together. Her work will always be defined by its understated, vulnerable nature, but here it feel much more an intention than an accident - an artist learning to lean into their strengths, no longer shrinking back in the wake of darkness. Bringing the record to a close on the delicate ‘Speaking Of The End’, she confronts it directly: “I’m running a new race… I’ve sculpted a new face”. By adding an extra layer of complexity to her sound without compromising on intimacy, it’s a solid evolution that bodes incredibly well for wherever she swims to next”.
Let’s finish off with the review from The Line of Best Fit. They were deeply impressed with Through Water. I first heard songs from it in 2020, but I have dived deeper into the album since then. It is magnificent, and it should be played more widely:
“Through Water is an expansion of Låpsley’s fluid soundscape which is dominated by ambient electronica, but the common thread which permeates it all is a sense of growth, understanding, and acceptance.
Without coining the stereotypical phrase, ‘coming of age’, there truly is a sense of acknowledgement of the past, and anticipation of the future which lies at the heart of the album. This sentiment comes to fruition quite early on, in the likes of “My Love Was Like the Rain”. A pacifying sound bath washes over you before being littered with staccato hits of a synth and brushes of a snare which calmly come together and convey a feeling of testing out the building blocks of life in order to formulate some kind of sense through moments of turbulence.
Where her previous releases have seen Låpsley as the embodiment of the lo-fi bedroom star, Through Water oozes multitudes of confidence, and within that arises the clarity of stumbling upon the right path in life. It is testament that Låpsley’s sonic palette has grown ever expansive and more developed over the years, with “First” containing afro-beat tinged hues that add a blossoming amount of warmth to her glacial soundscape, and “Bonfire” conjuring imagery of drizzling embers of fireworks which soar across the soundscape, radiating the excitement of encountering something unexplored.
Though, that isn’t to say that the introspective ambient moments have been completely lost. “Ligne 3” is an echo of “Station” – the song that catapulted her into the limelight – in that it perfectly captures her melancholic musings on love. Ethereal strings are thrown in for added meditative effect, shimmering amidst the call-and-response nature of her spectral vocals and her soft-spot for down pitched androgyny which portrays two sides of a heart-breaking story.
From the confines of her bedroom, to the expansiveness of the great blue planet; Låpsley’s talents are limitless. The parallels between nature and emotion are prevalent throughout, and her silken smoky tones often find ways to mirror lyrical content between songs — “Sadness is an avalanche” (Sadness is a Shade of Blue) and “Happiness grows like ivy walls” (Speaking of the End) are just a few of the poetically charged lines that showcase the progression in her lyricism, but “Leeds Liverpool Canal” offers the alternative idea that sometimes there is a lot of power in the unspoken. Serving as an interlude of sorts; the keys and strings cultivate a sense of euphoria whilst an element of grounding is offered by synthesised liquid pools being splashed at, by your feet, making you want to dance around them in order to feel a part of the action.
At the heart of it all, Through Water is an album that was made to move you – physically and emotionally – and most importantly, to make you feel. Water as a substance is intrinsic to our very being, and through Låpsley’s intention, is complex enough to touch us all”.
If you have never heard of Låpsley or her music, I would definitely point you towards Through Water. She is a brilliantly talented young artist that is among our most distinct and promising. I think Cautionary Tales of Youth is going to be terrifically received. It will be a treat in January. Go and spend some time listening to…
THE superb Through Water.