Known for her furious radio shows (among others for London’s NTS Radio) and her remarkable EP Figures that she recorded in collaboration with poet Lucy Van, Laila Sakini has cooked up Vivienne in the more recent past—a hypersensitive album that examines the piano and her own voice. While her previously self-released EP Like A Gun felt like a delicate ambient dream led by guitars and organs, Vivienne is very much about limitation. In the center of attention stands a melancholic and gloomy piano which interacts with hidden vocal elements and efx textures that carefully tickle the surface.
“The Glass In Between,” that we are premiering exclusively, works as a perfect example for the mood of the whole album: It portrays a world, in which everything is just an allusion. It plays with “tender symbols […] that come with a sigh,” as the press kit suggests. Harmonies are carefully structured and then dissolved with improvisation. The result is a minimalistic experience of both—discomfort and beauty.
Laila Sakini’s Vivienne will be released on Friday, February 28th on Total Stasis. Pre-listen to “The Glass In Between” above and order your copy here.
