We’re keeping in step with the work of la loye, the project of the talented young Dutch musician Lieke Heusinkveld . The final release from her debut EP to live underwater, this track about imagining things is, like her other work, poetic and delicate.
I think I compared my experience of la loye’s last piece White Summer to that of catching a butterfly in a glass jar. The opening verses of about imagining things enter in a similar fashion. Softly. With a tenderly plucked acoustic guitar and the subtle wafting of strings in the background. Heusinkveld’s vocal work lifts and dips and lifts again, creating contours of sound with the poetry of her lyricism.
As we’ve come to know la loye‘s work, there’s a sense of fragile beauty in it all. Like noticing a spiderweb on the back fence in the morning sun, I’m noticing the intricacy and delicacy of each connection, of each shape.
But the song doesn’t allow us to stay there. What pleasantly surprises me in about imagining things is the unexpected movement into an almost entirely new soundscape. Midway through the song. percussion elements transition in seamlessly, in a refreshingly unusual time signature. Delicacy becomes more raw, more aggressive with heavy chording on the electric guitar. Light and soft become deep and encompassing with the plunge of bass. And the soundscape is textured with almost spacey electronic elements that seem like they shouldn’t fit…but they do.
I have enjoyed this EP, and I’m curious how la loye‘s work will evolve and develop. I wonder if the next EP or album will resemble these same delicate features, or will offer us something entirely new as she experiments with her songwriting. Plenty to look forward to.
