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Music is the most intimate of art forms. It seems to penetrate our inner selves by getting inside our heads. Songs want to hook up with us, to establish a relationship with us. Thus, for instance, Neil Sedaka’s “Breaking Up Is Hard to Do” deploys every catchy trick in the songwriter’s handbook — doobie-doo vocalisations, finger snaps, clapping, loads of choruses — to ensure that we won’t break up with it by stopping listening.
A similar appeal is made at the start of Jessy Lanza’s new album, Love Hallucination. “Don’t Leave Me Now” is the name of its opening number. It sums up the task facing the first track in any album: to persuade us not to leave. On this occasion, the Canadian singer proves successful. The song’s mood is dynamic and inviting. Amid sharply criss-crossing beats and deep basslines, Lanza’s high voice is edited to give it a more pressing quality than usual. In contrast to its passive title, the track’s energy encourages us to stay for more.
The album is the follow-up to 2020’s impressive All the Time. Co-helmed by Lanza with various other electronic producers, including regular collaborator Jeremy Greenspan of Junior Boys, it initially has a more dance floor-focused sound than the electronic pop and R&B hues of its predecessor. “Midnight Ontario” cruises along with a lithe UK garage beat, while “Limbo” has a futuristic disco-funk feel. But then the tempo slows.
“Don’t Cry on My Pillow” juxtaposes swooshy textures with foregrounded percussion, a contrast between swooniness and emphasis. The idea of music as a sensual experience is prominent, with Lanza’s airy vocals usually proving more interesting for how they sound than what’s being said. “I Hate Myself” is an exception, in which she turns the self-loathing refrain into a perversely reflective New Age-style mantra.
At times it all gets a bit too immersive: the album could do with more of the energy of how it begins. But its sense of musical intimacy is well-worked, as with the seductive slow-jam closer, “Double Time”. “I’m coming back,” are Lanza’s last words, a pitch for another spin of the record.
★★★☆☆
‘Love Hallucination’ is released by Hyperdub
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