Låpsley Awarded One To Watch Prize at the GIT Awards: Feature (GetIntoThis)

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 16^th 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

http://www.peterguy.merseyblogs.co.uk/2014/04/introducing-lapsley-the-git-aw.html

Feature: Drohne (BidoLito!)

The first time came across Drohne, the live electronic duo of Luke McCulloch and Richie Craddock, was as they supported Factory Floor at The Kazimier last December. Vocalist McCulloch growled over a frenetic, warped collection of sounds that almost resembled a beat, whilst the jarringly silent crowd fidgeted awkwardly in some kind of confused trance as they tried to get their head around what the fuck was happening in front of them. Like myself though, every pair of eyes was fixed firmly on the two shy, sketchy looking lads nodding their hood-enclosed heads assertively on the stage, at one in our intrigued, fascinated and mesmerised bewilderment. “Yeah, that’s exactly right”, Luke laughs, recalling the gig warmly. “People do seem to know us as that band Drohne with their heads down and our hoods up”.

Drohne have nearly a years worth of demos available on their Soundcloud. And even if Luke is keen to remind me that these are old songs, and not necessarily a strict reflection of the band in front of me, they do still act as interesting signposts for how the duo have progressed and what form their music might take in the future. T.M.R (The Mother Road), which gave them their first taste of radio airplay with the help of an excellent Harvey Brown remix, uses cloudy and saturated textures to enclose and swallow the faint residue of a melody. Suppression, equally as restless and deliberately uncoordinated, simmers contently as parts slip in and out of line with each other with controlled abandon. Throughout these songs, McCulloch’s vocals are so impossibly singular that they sound profoundly alone, drenched in despair as if they are the last cry from a man who has resigned himself to madness. It’s a powerful and moving display of humanity from a genre where technology so often dominates. “I don’t just see myself as the guy who sings in the band though”, Luke quickly reminds me, keen to move away from the idea of his voice as a structural centerpiece. “With our new songs, I like the idea of my vocals being more murmured and ambient, almost blending into the soundscape rather than jumping out at you as they have done in the past”. The effects of this can be seen already, in the grooving, more immediate track Soul-Jo. It is certainly the closest Drohne have come to danceable, with a rolling beat and twinkling synth work creating a tranquil, summer’s afternoon atmosphere. Everything is so gorgeously calm and lo-fi that you’ll hardly even notice the brittle vocals of McCulloch nudging the song gorgeously towards a conclusion in the closing moments. The musicality of Soul-Jo in the midst of all the dissonance and tension that underpins their body of work is almost jarring, and highlights their ability to expose the contrasts between the digital abrasion of their production and the natural warmth provided by tone and melody with disarming consequences.

With limited recorded material available online, Drohne have gathered most of their support based on a handful of live shows around the city. Support slots for the likes of East India Youth, Slow Magic and the aforementioned Factory Floor have enabled them to present themselves as a live electronic act, rather than just a production duo. And whilst workstation software obviously is obviously important, they are keen to remind me that first and foremost, they are a band: “We don’t really consider ourselves as producers”, Richie explains cautiously. “We get bored of it quite easily, as its just there on a screen. Making the music has to be a more visceral experience for us I think. The way we write a song is that we’ll have an idea and just jam with it for a while, lay it down, build on it, tweak it, add and change some vocals or guitar, and then until it just emerges into this sort of brainchild. It’s a very natural process”. It’s telling that Drohne don’t consider themselves producers. It’s not that any note that isn’t strummed, plucked, bowed or blown is a purer form of expression than say, one produced from a box of wires. Richie’s idea that songwriting needs to be visceral though, that they need to feel each tone and melody before they subject it to digital manipulation, is essential to their musical backbone in the sense that it provides them anchorage to the strange, unpredictable results that emerge at the end of their creative process.

Despite aforementioned demos and a healthy collection of live performances, we’ve still yet to see an official release from Drohne. Their future is far from uncertain though with an EP due out imminently, and this concept of using your live show to shape your recordings has allowed them to develop it around how they want it to be experienced, rather than how they want it to sound. “We’re planning on going to Amsterdam for a bit”, Luke says confidently as he explains their plans for the next twelve months. “There is a place we’ve got our eye on right in the center of the city. It’s a huge brickwork building, and you can pay to rent out one of the floors for a month. It’s unbelievably big, like one hundred meter squared of this open space. We would just set up all our equipment over there and write an EP. It would be a different vibe completely living over in Europe, which would have an interesting effect on our music and the way we sound”. Whilst it may sound ambitious, that notion of locking yourself away in isolation as a means of creative stimulation has shaped some of the best albums of our time. And you get the feeling that, given the emotion and care they clearly invest in being Drohne, this kind departure from reality that will allow them to harness it into a singular piece of work that they feel can adequately represent them.

Drohne aren’t afraid to dodge convention, happy to arrive not fully formed, but in a state of constant development. And I don’t just mean in the literal sense – they have shaken off two former members over the last year – but musically as well. Their brief collection of songs, like their live shows, sound strikingly incomplete, as if they are a collection of ideas rattling around like loose change at the bottom of a bag. They wilfully resist cadences and conclusions, pushing their music into gentle spins that slow down, speed up, slow down again but never quite stop. In age of constant output and reproduction, Drohne are embracing the negative space between expectation and reality to ensure that their relationship with their audience, and with their own music, remains in an ongoing and enthralling state of flux.

Listen: https://soundcloud.com/d-r-o-h-n-e

Mike Townsend        

@townsendyesmate

http://www.bidolito.co.uk/issues/issue-43

GIT Award Profile: Forest Swords (GetIntoThis)

Whilst the GIT award is here to celebrate the achievements of Merseyside artists, it feels more appropriate to look at Forest Sword’s achievements in the context of the UK music as a whole. His debut 2010 album, the coarse, abrasive Dagger Paths, found plaudits both sides of the Atlantic, with Fact Magazine suggesting it was the most “unified, moving and substantial musical statement they’d heard” as they named it their album of the year ahead of Kanye and Darkstar. Three years of writing, touring and recording later, a follow up finally emerged in the shape of last year’s Engravings, presenting a collection of songs equally as challenging and packed with impossible amounts of detail, earning him a place in Pitchfork’s esteemed Best New Music club as well as an illustrious range of albums of the year list.

Despite only emerging into public consciousness in 2010, Matthew Barnes already has plenty to reflect on. I mean, three years is almost long enough to make you a veteran in UK electronic music, and with two hugely acclaimed albums and several tours under his belt, you can already expect him to be the kind of artist who’s career is remembered in terms of era’s instead of years. Based on The Wirral, he writes and records almost all his music in his home studio - a decision based on logistics as much as it is aesthetics: “I don't like the idea of setting up in a large studio”, Barnes explains. “For one, I couldn't afford it. And also, having a smaller setup means you're working within certain parameters. You can't go completely crazy. Everything is a lot more pared down, and it affects the type of choices you make when it comes to the components of songs. I'd much rather have that, than endless choice. I don't want to disappear up my own arse in Abbey Road or something”. That notion of doing your best with the tools you have has always shaped great electronic music. And with technology moving so quickly, producers are able to figure things out spontaneously to create something that is truly unique. On Dagger Paths and Engravings, sounds are warped, chewed up and dissolved to the point where it becomes almost impossibly immersive. And whilst the texture is dark, ominous, and even frightening at times, listening to a Forest Swords album always feels like a journey of rich and rewarding discovery.

Even with this impeccable run of releases, Forest Swords has never been an easy artist. These are songs, and indeed albums that require constant and detailed attention, allowing all the little nuances and touches to unravel slowly before you can call them your own. Forest Swords clearly harbors and deep fascination and affection for the way sounds are produced and for the way they are experienced. With each song on Engravings and Dagger Paths, you can picture the producer hunched over his mixing desk in his home studio, mug of coffee in hand as he spends four hours going through sample packs for the sake of a three second clip. Whilst I may be sensationalizing a little, that feeling that you are experiencing sounds as painstakingly sourced and tailored as these is extremely powerful for a listener. Barnes might have shut himself away in that home studio of his, but he left the door slightly ajar, providing a glimpse into his world of sonic madness and wonder.

Part of the Tri Angle Records family, Forest Swords is often lumbered with terms like enigmatic or elusive. And alongside label mate Evian Christ, his relationship with the local musical community has always appeared quite tenuous. We haven’t seen that big homecoming show, and his nomination for this year’s award was met with surprised calls of ‘I didn’t even know he was from here’ from various corners. The low touring costs and the predominantly online listening experience mean that community in electronic music is built on components other than location. “Because electronic music is more solitary, you gravitate to likeminded people”, Barnes agrees. “All the electronic acts I know personally are solo artists, and tour on their own, so it's a lot different to being in a band and having your mates around all the time. You connect on a different level with other electronic artists. It's reassuring. I can appreciate what's going on in Liverpool, and how vibrant it is at the moment, but I don't feel part of a community. I've always felt like a bit of a musical outsider. There is always positive things going on and the city's constantly improving”. That sense of local community does absolutely exist among listeners though, and however the artist receives it, a feeling of local pride for artists is still important for fans of all kinds of music, and one that awards like this should continue to encourage it. I mean, I remember visiting my parents in Kent and hearing my brother listening to The Weight of Gold, feeling compelled to make him aware that Forest Swords was from Merseyside as I tried to claim some kind of weird ownership over it. “I like witnessing the city’s music scene in different ways than as an artist, even if its just as someone that goes out to eat or drink around here”, Barnes elaborates. “I just don't really hang out with people in bands up here or anything. I've always worked at my own pace and in my own space. What I do try and do though, is mention where I'm from when I talk to people. I feel it's important for people abroad or in different cities to understand that there are good things going on here. That it's just as vital and exciting as any other European city. Not even just musically, but culturally. I feel like it's important for everyone here to big it up”.

Barnes has just finished supporting Mogwai on their European dates. And with fellow Merseysiders Mugstar and Clinic also propping up the bill, it is a welcome reminder of Liverpool’s continuing musical impact in the UK. “It was fantastic, and a real once-in-a-lifetime thing to support one of your favourite bands of that size”, he explains. “Playing to huge theatres was a culture shock. It was an honour to be chosen, and it was great to see Mugstar and Clinic do some dates too. I did speak to Mogwai about us all being from Merseyside, and they didn't even put two and two together, which is even more of a compliment - the fact we were just chosen because they liked our music. It was a pretty overwhelming experience overall”. With barely enough time to stop and take it all in, Forest Swords is now about to embark on a US tour with How To Dress Well, passing another milestone as his reach extends further beyond our small little island. “Touring is mentally exhausting, but it's a thrill to go and play to cities you'd never ever expect your music to reach”, Barnes explains. “Sometimes if the crowd's a bit rowdier or more reserved I'll change the songs up. You learn to read an audience's energy a lot better the more shows you do”.

Forest Swords has rightly earned his place as one of Merseyside’s most lauded artists. And with Engravings and Dagger Paths, he has created a body of work that have allowed him to be celebrated as one of the UK’s most innovative and most original producers as well. If we have learned anything from his creative path thus far, and what is clear from this interview alone, is that Barnes is an artist who revels in a state of learning and discovery. This makes the idea of a new Forest Swords album, and any others that may arrive in the future, almost impossible to visualize, both aesthetically and contextually. What we can say for certain though, is that electronic music fans all over the world will be listening absorbedly and intently, as they attempt to make sense of the world he has created.

Mike Townsend

http://www.peterguy.merseyblogs.co.uk/2014/03/git-award-2014-artist-nominee-5.html

Feature: The Cyclist (BidoLito!)

The Cyclist

When introducing his new album ‘Ghettoville’, London producer Actress said that he “wanted it to sound brittle, as if you were an addict and you feel like the world is crumbling around you”. This kind of controlled chaos, when you know that the sound coming out of your speakers extends beyond anything you could possibly understand, is what drives Derry born, Liverpool based producer THE CYCLIST. His debut album Bending Brass, which already reaches beyond the Atlantic thanks to the support of Stones Throw and LA’s Leaving Records, is an intense, challenging and immersive listen, capable of completely removing you from your surroundings. Whether your on a dancefloor gurning your tits off or on the last bus home from town with your headphones on, all those little intricacies and nuances are far too much of a distraction for you to be able to focus on anything else.

A third year pharmaceutical student at the University of Liverpool, Andrew Morrison is a producer that strives for innovation. “I’ve always been a solo artist”, he explains. “When I was fourteen my brother bought a four-track tape recorder, and around the same time I downloaded an old copy of Ableton. From there I just started fucking around which each of those, going back and fourth between them. It was a long, long process to pick it up to be honest. It really took me ages to figure it all out. I didn’t use any tutorial videos or anything, just fiddled around with it in a trial and error sort of way”. The accessibility and versatility of workstation software like Ableton or FL Studio has produced a generation of self-taught recording artists, which has arguably been central to the relentless forward momentum of electronic music over the last ten years. I mean, ‘fucking around’ is just another way of saying experimental these days anyway, and he is certainly no stranger to it.

Morrison speaks openly about how financial constrains have impacted his music career so far. And even his Bandcamp page warmly describes an old, twenty-pound keyboard he used to record the album. “Ah yes, that keyboard”, he chuckles. “To be honest, being a musician and a student - two of the poorest types of people in the country - I’m just really fucking skint”. Furthering your career and furthering your wallet don’t necessarily correlate as much as they should do for musicians. And whilst the argument of whether or not they are fairly compensated for their art is an important one, Morrison has found ways of making his lack of resources, well, resourceful; using what is essentially a toy keyboard to create sounds that even the most seasoned electronic music ears won’t be used to hearing. “Yeah, I mean by this point I’ve sort of grown to love the noises of the cheaper things. I tend to look for hardware that can produce interesting, unexpected sounds that you might not get from the normal standard equipment. Sometimes I channel something quite expensive and clean sounding, like an Ableton synth, into something shit like a twenty pound tape machine and see what comes out”. The results are arresting in their originality, and will sound like a mess for those not looking to put the work in. The rewards are generous though, providing a blistering, bewildering, yet absolutely unmissable journey into the furthest corners of electronic music.

On Can, a highlight from Bending Brass, Morrison keeps the rhythmic pattern simple, using a thumping beat and a crisp synth to produce that kind of big room techno tune that deserves to be played on the best sound systems by the best DJs. In the context of the complicated, intricate album, it almost feels decadent, as if Morrison is allowing himself a brief moment of indulgence. “Yeah, Can is definitely the most old school tune I’ve ever made”, Morrison says cautiously. “A lot of what I write is quite beat-less, so it was nice to be able to make something like that, and it’s definitely a sound I want to explore further”. The obvious peak of Can though, would have less resonance if it not for the more subtle moments on the album, like the stuttering, darkly irregular Pins and Needles on My Face, or the snidely tuneless Technicolor. These songs create an area for the blustering, confident Can to sound like a victory lap rather than a momentary lapse in concentration.

“There’s two ways I want people to listen to the album”, Morrison explains assertively. “Either dancing to it, or to be just zoning out in complete solitude, staring into space and totally detached from everything else”. When you consider the contrast in these settings, not just situationally but circumstantially as well, it’s difficult to imagine the same piece of music transcending them both. What Morrison is suggesting though, is that he wants people to get lost in his tunes. I mean, we’ve all been in our own world on a dancefloor, sometimes on a different fucking planet. Similarly, we’ve probably at some point in our shit lives all drifted off sitting on the night bus staring blankly into a crumpled up copy of The Metro (probably on the same weekend if your drugs are good enough). It does raise an interesting question; whether electronic, or more specifically this kind of lo-fi techno can straddle both high art and club culture at the same time. What’s most impressive about The Cyclist’s brief body of work, and what goes some way to achieving this kind versatility, is its interactive element, where it allows the listener to deconstruct and unload the individual components with every listen. All the little touches and convolutions that make up these songs, like that metal on metal clanging on An Abyss Part 2, or that tuneless brass sound on Contorted, feel strikingly tailored, as if he’s spent hours sourcing, molding and affecting them, allowing them to segue effortlessly into whatever state of mind you find yourself in.

In an age of constant production and consumption, it’s difficult to find an artist who completely owns their sound. And whilst this obsession with the original might not be as important now as it was – I mean, some of the best albums in recent years have come from retreading the past - that feeling that you are listening to something unlike you’ve ever heard before is a rare, but precious experience. It happens once, maybe twice a year, and it can be the sort of moment that completely changes your day, maybe even your week. These are the moments that every music listener - from rock music to techno - truly strives for, and they are the ones that stay with us for the longest. Bending Brass, the extraordinary debut album from The Cyclist, moves between Detroit Techno, jungle, dub, even first wave psycedelia, to create a collection of songs that revel in their originality and innovation but in a way that’s warm and welcoming. 

“I’ve got a release lined up under another alias”, explains Morrison as he discusses his plans for the year. “It’s coming out under All City Records in Dublin, and it’s going to be very noisey, distorted 80s house tunes. It will play with simpler rhythms and more repetitive melodies, with a bit of an old school vibe. The label is going to release it across a series of twelve inches around May this year. I’ve spent a lot of time with these tunes, so I’m really excited by them”. It speaks volumes for Morrison as an artist that he doesn’t consider himself an experimentalist. And as he considers moving into more immediate, melodic territory for his future releases, the prospect of him working on top of musical templates already laid out for him is one of endless, and exciting possibilities.

Mike Townsend

@townsendyesmate

http://www.bidolito.co.uk/issues/issue-42

Feature: Låpsley (BidoLito!)

Låplsey’s hushed whisper on her recordings is often mistaken for shyness or timidity, and it might even be a fair assumption, given the kind of hood up, heads-down stage manner of so many of her predecessors. But there are moments in this brief interview that Låpsley, or Holly Lapsley Fletcher, becomes quite animated: “I’m actually a very open person. I just want to be myself, so I’m not going to pretend to be shy just because it sounds appropriate for the kind of music I’m playing” she says, sounding suspicious. Holly might have to start getting used to this kind of probing, though, as she attempts to balance on the colossal wave of acclaim swelling behind her right now. Nearly a month ago, her newest song - the soft and unassuming Station - quietly appeared online. And whilst it would be unfair to discredit her previous works entirely, this very much feels like a debut single for the 17 year old singer: “I’ve been producing for like four months”, she explains, “but I’ve written writing songs for about three years, doing gigs with just a guitar and piano. After some time working with local producers Drohne, I got a feel for it and wanted to see what I could do with that kind of aesthetic on my own”. Songs like Crosses (which you can still hear on her Soundcloud) do indeed sound unfinished, but they still serve as significant signposts for the artist we see today. “I still write all my songs on a guitar or piano, and then chopped the parts up and take certain verses or certain sections of them. So the final productions are just electronic versions of these if you know what I mean. Station began as an acoustic song called Walk You Back to The Station, and then I took a few parts from that and cut it down and it became the final version we can hear now”.

Låpsley’s transformation from acoustic crooner to electronic beatmaker is a telling reflection on what it means to be a singer-songwriter in 2014. At the turn of the century, as dubstep started to wobble from a Croydon record store and Jamie Cullum made his four-hundredth appearance on Jools Holland, singer-songwriters were still chained to their pianos or their acoustic guitars, constructing songs based purely around natural and organic sounds. Similarly, DJs and producers were still confined, at least in mainstream media terms, to wastemen with some form of synthetic drug addiction or socially awkward computer geeks flicking between World of Warcraft and Protools. At some point though, between Kanye discovering auto-tune and James Blake discovering ceiling protectors, it started to become ok for singers and songwriters to fuck around with their voices. We are at a stage now where producers and solo artists are starting to meet in the middle. The likes of Sohn, Sampha, even Jai Paul – three of the UK’s biggest rising solo artists – are writing, performing and producing their own tunes, fudging the boundaries to the point where you don’t even ask who wrote or produced what track anymore because really; it doesn’t fucking matter. And these are still the same songs of love, hate, loss and regret, just shaped with electronics and producing more complex and more versatile results. Låpsley’s development as a songwriter began with just that - songwriting. And now, as she’s matured and looked for more flexible ways to express herself, we are left with this quite brilliant piece of music; a subtle, simple song, framed stunningly by the lightest touch of electronics. “I knew when I finished writing Station that this was what I wanted to sound like. I was still experimenting before, playing around with different beats, techniques and tempos”. Yet despite the new reliance on technology, the finest moments of Station and those that speak the loudest can be found in the silences. Those hushed intakes of air, that tiny patter of static, all allowing that touching refrain of ‘I could walk you back to the station’ to resonate as affectingly as possible.

Half way through the interview her phone rings. She stares blankly at a number she doesn’t recognize. ‘I’ll get that later”, she says tiredly, “I’ve had a load of managers and people I don’t know ringing me recently. It’s all getting a bit mad”. It would be easy to put a comment like this down to a bit of harmless bravado. That is, if you had managed to avoid the Internet for the last two weeks. Her twitter timeline is flooded with blogs from all over the world, all picking up on Station with some astonishingly high praise. The term overnight success is inherently flawed, but having bumped into Holly on New Years Eve when she tentatively suggested I check out her new song that was “getting some good early coverage”, its difficult not to include that kind of throwaway phrase in this piece. I mean, at the time of writing, Stations has accrued over 100,000 plays on Soundcloud, most of which have been in the last fortnight. That, by anyone’s standards, is mental. Especially when you consider that she’s done next to no promotion for it: “Yeah, I’ve gone from 46 followers on Soundcloud to over 2000 in less than a month. It’s really weird, because Station took me like two hours to make. I don’t even feel like much thought went into it, I just wrote this chilled track, added some synths and some claps, and then all of a sudden everyone is trying to emotionally dissect it. It’s a really simple song though, and I think I quite like that”.

Pigeons and Planes call Station one of their ‘favorite tracks so far this year’, whilst The Line of Best Fit go a step further, calling it ‘exquisite’. And it must be difficult, the notion of everyone scrutinizing and analyzing these tunes when for a long time, it must have felt like no one was listening. “Yeah, its very strange, as your songs are a very personal thing”, she says cautiously, playing with the ice in her glass of orange juice. “I mean it is all quite hectic, but hopefully I’m managing it alright at the moment”. With several label meetings in London this week, the details of which she is wisely keeping under wraps, Holly will need to work hard to give herself the space and time she needs to develop her sound naturally. “I’m not going to do much music until the summer now, as I’ve got my A Levels coming up, she says assuredly. “I was just quite anxious to get Stations out there, so I could show everyone what I’m about before I took some time away to proper nail it down”. Almost everything written about Låpsley so far has been preceded with her age. And whilst it may seem like lazy journalism, the mention of her A Levels is a sobering reminder of just how fucking young 17 actually is. However, when balanced against how exciting her coming of age is going to sound, I'm pretty sure it will only be a momentary lapse into sobriety. 

Mike Townsend

@townsendyesmate