LAVEDA

A PLACE YOU GREW UP IN

APRIL 30TH, 2023

I’m big on musical aesthetic. I like a theme. I dig a brand. I don’t scoff at image. I welcome a look. Seek a vibe. And before hitting play on Laveda’s new album I paused to take in the cover art. It spoke to me in all its dreamy, faded, slightly out of focus simplicity; brought thoughts of early Red House Painters, Galaxie 500, and those iconic 4ad covers. Fingers crossed, we waded into the drift. And was met with joy….

All the hallmarks of dream pop and shoegaze: hazy guitars, layered effects, mild distortion, vocal lines subsumed *just* below the instrumentation. But Laveda have not gone full Cocteau Twins with wholly indecipherable lyrical Liz Frazier fuzzy warbles. No oceanic swells of insufferable susurration.  There is, however, scattered throughout, a bucolic simplicity, a soft sensitivity to these tracks. You’llI want to lie in a hammock on a cloudy summer afternoon, memories flowing and floating along a place you grew up in.  You’ll want to read late into the night with “We’re All Screwed” or “Jumper Cables” or “Be Yours” or “Troy Creeps” in the background, soundtracking new memories, new feelings. You’ll want to stare into the garden, count buds and shoots; stare off the stoop, the far off hollers and hoops of children stuttering beneath the musical bliss.