Melbourne artist Laura Jean's new LP Devotion sees the acclaimed folk auteur dipping into synth-pop terrain. Critically acclaimed for her piercing and intimate albums, Laura has worked with producer John Lee on Devotion (Beaches, Lost Animal) to create an enveloping album, singular in its vision and scope. Laura's previous release, her self-titled 2014 LP, was recorded in the UK with John Parish (Perfume Genius, Aldous Harding, Sonic Youth, PJ Harvey) and featured Norwegian avant-gardist Jenny Hval throughout on backing vocals. On her latest release, Laura found herself tinkering with a 90s Kawai keyboard, enjoying its built-in drum rhythms and a crystalline synth sound. She began a series of shows performing with nothing but the keyboard, as the idea for her next album began to take shape.
Written to chronicle the vivid memory of teenage obsession filtered through Laura’s razor sharp lyrical focus, initial influences for the record took in contemporary R’n’B, 80s pop and 70s disco, but the end result is transformed into something wholly other, creating a delicate and dreamlike world.
Played entirely by Laura, John Lee and Augie March drummer Dave Williams, Devotion is both contemporary and timeless in its impressionistic portrait of the purity and endless wonder associated with adolescence.
“I see myself as the narrator, an ordinary woman wearing a shiny pink dreamcoat that signifies it’s my turn to tell a story. It doesn’t matter that my story is ordinary, what matters is that I tell my story with hard earned skill and loving sincerity. I want to show that the everyday story of a girl is important, and that seemingly inconsequential events in a girl’s life can have a huge effect on her.” says Laura Jean.
Release: June 8th, 2018, Chapter Music via Inertia
Words: Chapter/Inertia