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The force uniting them all is Lou’s smoky, hypnagogic voice, which weaves through the verses like a needle through yarn. Never has this effect been so strong as on ‘The Surface’, her newest single.
Her folk impulses, always subtly at work on previous records, are sharply in focus here. A lilting acoustic guitar rhythm eases the track forward, reminiscent of Jessica Pratt’s recent album, which created a similarly hermetic and warm sound. But foggy vocal effects are reduced to a minimum, and Lou sings bright and clear: “I've seen where the heart goes when it is burning / I've followed smoke signals and turned up with nothing / We can't turn back time / But I wouldn't want to”. If the song is about the surfaces of people, and what lies beneath them, then each line is a simple stripping-back of the surface; taken together, the lyrics build an intricate and deceptively tricksy portrait of a stream of thoughts. Lou proves herself a master of the iceberg effect, not giving away everything and pulling you in further to examine her meaning.
The other effect of 'The Surface' is a feeling of vintage familiarity, as if it has been pulled from a lost trove of 1970s classics by Vashti Bunyan, Melanie Safka, or Joni Mitchell - something you’ve heard but cannot place. In the truest sense of the world, it already feels classic, transporting you to the twilit place suggested on the hazy yellow artwork - a honeyed world in which it feels right to be trapped in.
