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| Photo: Adam Johns |
The ability to prick the ears of those beyond
your hometown is something of a holy grail. And if you’ve spent long enough
going to gigs in any City you’d know that for most artists, it never really
happens. Some, like The Tea Street Band, have spent years gigging and are
finally reaping the rewards. Others, like fellow GIT Award nominees Evian
Christ or Forest Swords, have spent equally as long shaping and refining their
craft in private. Låpsley, the recipient of this year’s inaugural One To Watch
award, has condensed the generic career path of an exciting new artist into the
space of just a few months. And whilst her absolutely stratospheric rise from
small acoustic shows in Parr Street to Radio 1 and the pages of NME speaks
volumes for her raw talent as an artist, it also speaks volumes for the
Liverpool, that one of our own was able to connect with all corners of the
country without even leaving the city.
Holly Lapsley Fletcher is a
seventeen-year-old singer/songwriter, come producer, from Formby. Having spent
a couple of years crafting songs with an acoustic guitar - the products of
which can still be seen on her Soundcloud with songs like Crosses – she started to experiment with electronics as a way of carving
out a sound that she could call her own. What emerged from this period of
discovery, and what can now emphatically be referred to as her breakthrough
moment, was the delicate, touching track Station.
And let’s get this out the way – believe the hype with this one. I actually met
Holly on New Years Eve last December, as she spoke shyly about a new song she
‘hoped people would be into’. Nursing a crippling hangover the following
morning, I visited her Soundcloud and played Station. Then I played it again, and again, and again, until that
stirring refrain of ‘I’ll walk you back to the station’ had permeated my mind
irreversibly. There are two vocal parts
playing alongside, as she pitch shifts her vocals right down to the point where
it sounds like a male and female singing together. This is a technique she is
becoming synonymous with, and it works because the vocal lines are always distinct
enough in tone and personality so that they move in the same direction, rather
than as if they were two people singing at one and other.
National press picked up on the song almost
immediately, with Pigeons and Planes naming it among their favorites of the
year and Lineofbestfit calling it ‘exquisite’ and suggesting that she was among
the brightest female talents in the country. Within a couple of weeks it had
eclipsed 100,000 plays on Soundcloud, then 150,000, then 200,000, as her
Twitter went into Retweet overdrive as blogs and sites from all over the world
staked a claim and pinned their colours to this strange enigma from the North
of England. Throughout her brief body of work so far, Låpsley has demonstrated
an ability to touch on conventional emotions, like heartbreak and loneliness,
but in a way that stays short of maudlin or melodramatic. The composure, both
lyrically and musically is striking, and has rightly lead to any mention of her
age in the media being preceded by a statement of disbelief.
Monday, the four track EP is available on online platforms right now, and whilst
it doesn’t include Station, it does
offer interesting glimpse into an artist trying to figure out what being a
musician means to her and what it should mean to her listeners. These songs,
like the loose Blue Monday cover, are almost wrought with fragility and
sentiment, but they are never oversold, as Holly works enough space for her
vocals so that they sound weirdly, but affectingly distant.
Last month,
Låpsley played her debut show in her current form at Leaf Tea Shop as part of
the Ace Liverpool showcase. Even if you were one of the few journalists in the
North West not to have been there, you only had to keep an eye on Twitter and
Facebook to see what should have been a small, inconspicuous debut gig had
turned into an event.
Managers, labels, Publishing and PR Agents; all shaking
their Gin and Tonics and chattering hurriedly as they compared stories about how
they first heard Station, who they
were representing and where they saw her this time next year. “I was aware that they were all there,
but it didn't really phase me”, Holly explains. “I did try to chat to as many
people I could in the short space of time, but I was more excited about playing and
eating falafel than meeting people to be honest. I felt like I had finally
found my niche, performing an electronic set is so much more exciting, I even
had to apologise to the audience for my two-step shuffle on stage”. It was a
strange evening, certainly nothing like anything I’ve ever seen in Liverpool. It’s the sort of show you imagine only happens in downtown Manhattan
or in Tony Parsons novels, where the entranced whisper of the crowd combines
with the sound of camera flashes and notepad scribbling to make the excitement
almost tangible.
On the 16th March, a whirlwind 2014
for Låpsley culminated in a Radio 1 airing on Sohn’s (who’s management she now
shares) Bedtime mix for Annie Mac, as the wheels turned even faster, moving
Holly from regional to national talent as the rest of the UK started listening.
Further Radio 1 plays followed, as NME eventually featured her alongside comparisons
to Kiwi megastar Lorde. With a three track EP due out later this year, and with
label deals currently in the works, the future is shaping up pretty smartly for
Låpsley. “I
put pressure on myself to produce the best music I can, but other people's
expectations don't bother me”, she explains confidently as she considers the
next twelve months. “I think music is different to each individual and so
whatever I release I’m going to be judged. Whether or not the response is
positive depends on the listener. I'm just going to carry on how I am now. I
feel the moment you change for the sake of other people, especially critics, is
the moment you lose what you had and what made people like you in the first
place”.
This time next year we might all be talking
about her through a series of I was there moments. Or maybe she’ll still be
playing gigs at Leaf. What’s certain though, and what makes her choice as this
year’s One To Watch almost indisputable, is that Merseyside hasn’t had an artist
connect so quickly, so widely and so emphatically with the rest of the country
in the best part of a decade. And in case you need reminding, she’s only
seventeen
