Since Oh No (2016), her fiercest statement, the last couple of years have unfolded strangely for Jessy Lanza. A move from her Canadian home of Hamilton to New York where, she was, as admitted candidly, “emotionally up and down and felt very isolated and disconnected from everything and everyone around me.” She prods on the album’s spacious opener: “Anyone around? Anyone…?”. Sparse, elegantly deconstructed rapid-fire beats and subterranean bass pumps slack, punctuated with curious synth strokes unrolling without an answer as futile question marks.

It wasn’t apparent another album with her creative partner in crime Jeremy Greenspan of Junior Boys would even happen, but as the triumphantly melancholic titular track “All The Time” effortlessly took shape to their satisfaction, the new album was soon in the making. It fast became a constructive anchor for Lanza. “I felt very depressed, so experimenting with my instruments and spending time in my studio and working on ‘All the Time’ was something positive to focus on.” The duo, working long-distance, perfecting ideas back and forth, gave the record a feeling of highly accomplished sonic craft and emotional finesse without feeling overworked. In an unstable world, Lanza found a safe space and comfort in the form of her transient habitat, her beloved van which is featured on the cover.

Jessy Lanza by Milos Jacimovic

Unfortunate circumstances continued, further spreading globally, with the pandemic dismantling her early European tour and forcing another move to San Francisco. New home base, shared with her videographer partner Winston Case and family, proved fertile ground. A poignant visual identity resulted, capturing the lockdown moment in a series of videos and home Dj sessions, exemplary of a new global DIY aesthetic, running everything through the everyday filter. “I think there has been a burst of creativity for us despite the limitations. Maybe even because of the limitations,” she affirms. “I’ve been working on remixes and lots of new material too since I’ve been at home so hopefully I can share something soon.”

Lanza’s scholarly ear is as ever hooked on immaculate pop melodies and finding that holy grail of the perfect R&B song. Her sonic principles still draw heavily from 90s sophisticated bangers: divine vocals and ungodly beats as immortalized in Aaliyah/Timbaland era. But lately, her inspiration seems to be moving back a decade and further, towards softer soulful hues and slow burners. New sound is influenced by her more often excursions into DJ territory, where mixing mindset altered the structure of the new tracks to appear more fluid and changeable.

Still, prominent Lanza signature, crisp tones, playfully luminescent Asian-tinged melodies betray longstanding influences like Haruomi Hosono, and some less obvious informing the record’s carefully crafted sonic aesthetics. Of contemporaries, she was drawing on producers like “Chasethemoney, Pi’erre Bourne, Kara-Lis Coverdale” and trying to figure out what they were doing to get the tones and sounds on their records. “I listened to Grafts by Kara-Lis all the time,” Jessy is revealing. “The way she uses samples and frequencies to compose was a huge inspiration for me on All the Time. In a similar way, I was obsessed with the Playboi Carti song ‘Lean 4 real’ (produced by Bourne).” Labelmates like Inga Copeland and Dean Blunt still share much with her sonic DNA. While subtly emulating the atmosphere and aesthetic principles, you’d never guess any direct links with said artists in Lanza‘s finely crafted unique pop jewels.

“I made myself quite vulnerable on this album – the liner notes include the lyrics which is something I never would have done on previous records,” Jessy shares. Her most sincere statement to date, “All the Time” is easy to connect to, feeling like a certain coming out as a human being, isolated and vulnerable, dropping the shame, making it feel liberating and gleefully normalized. She uncovers the secret behind the greater self-acceptance: “I started doing psychoanalysis which really helped me to identify the source of a lot of sadness and anger in my life. I felt like I got to know myself a lot better and it became easier to articulate what I felt in my writing whereas before trying to understand myself was like looking at a big abstract blob.” Bewildered, she sings: “And it’s hard to believe I don’t know myself”, her voice fading in higher registers on the bonafide banger of the album, “Over and Over“, most rightful sonic heir to “Oh No”. Evidently, we can take ourselves for granted, sometimes straying so far, when we finally meet ourselves inside, it feels like a strangely familiar alien encounter.

The atmosphere of alien intimacy haunts the record deeply, in eerily retro synth work and vocal effects, oftentimes playfully overpitched. Despite toned down footwork and signature beat sorcery, subtle experimentation emerges throughout, rewarding careful listening. Lanza uncovers a conscious effort to leave mistakes, “whether it was weird sounds in the drums or a vocal take that may not have been perfect in pitch but captured a unique quality that I wouldn’t be able to replicate.”

Realizing a certain kind of discordant feeling is necessary to set the creativity off but still a formally pure artist, Lanza does not let it spill over too much into the body of the song, except in decidedly overworked glitch thrill “Face“.

Jessy Lanza by Jenia Filatova

Angry at its core, but sublimated, deceptively saccharine fun-spinning “Lick in Heaven“, shows up as zoned out 4×4 pop euphoria. Accompanying video made by Case is set on a morning TW show, all fuchsia power suits and fake excess smiles, with Lanza at the decks, studio turning into Ellen-inspired dancing spinning frenzy. What makes Lanza “go spinning” in anger are often ways things are marketed to women, the media and those morning TV shows exemplary in selling the one-dimensional images. She explains the frustration: “It seems to be challenging for people to accept that someone can be many things at once. It’s possible to be soft and assertive or submissive and domineering at the same time. A big problem with representation for women is that it can be very one dimensional and very boring. This drives me a bit crazy but I think that’s why it’s fun for me to play around with the tropes in the music so that I can steer the narrative in my own direction.”

There is the wizard of Oz kind of vibe, where she subtly draws the curtain to let you peek in, revealing clichés of the dream selling pop industry, without disrupting the structure at the same time wholeheartedly adopting the same “naive” pop song tropes. In her musical language, pop tropes are a kind of “small talk”, deceptively easy-going ice breakers that make way for dealing with the inner complexities and the lows comfortably camouflaged. Despite much of the album’s themes charged with romantic and erotic revelations, directed at a significant other, oftentimes frustratingly, equally lovingly, all that subtly conflicted ideal vs real romantic material is adopted for wider subversive play. “I think I use ‘romance’ as a way to talk about my own longing to be understood,” she finally concludes. As much as the album is a reflection on relationships, it stands as a radical statement of self-intimacy, its maturity found in self-acceptance, flaws and all. Without being self-helpy, it’s a fine document of personal knowledge and growth.

Asked about the near future of romance, Lanza shrugs off the fears post-pandemic blues might alienate us all further. “It’s human nature to seek out connection (romantic or otherwise) and despite the need to be distant the desire to be close is so powerful.” This uncanny timely collection of purest pop songs for the distanced, yet reaching out in longing, stands as her strongest argument, to be played over and over to the banishment of isolation.

Text by Danijela Bočev

Four years after Oh No, Jessy Lanza has finally announced the release of her third album. Like for her previous full-length projects, the Hamilton artist – who is now based in NYC – has enrolled Jeremy Greenspan to help her with the production. After “Lick In Heaven” and “Face,” she unveils today “Anyone Around,” the opening track and third single lifted from the record.

Drawing on hip-hop, the minimalist track opposes a stiff 808’s beat to Lanza‘s vocals, always so pitched yet soulful. The accompanying video, courtesy of director Winston H. Case, was made via videoconference – guess why – and features more than 30 different musicians. Watch and pre-order the album via Bandcamp below.

Two months after “Lick In Heaven,” Jessy Lanza has finally announced her third album. For this project, the Hamilton’s artist collaborated once again with her long-time musical partner Jeremy Greenspan, from the duo Junior Boys, to craft “the most pure set of pop songs the duo has recorded.”

Coming with this announcement, she has also unveiled a lush new track, “Face,” which combines pulsing beats with euphoric vocal chops.

“I was fantasizing about what everyone was thinking based on their expressions,” she explained about the inspiration of the track. “I found myself projecting my own feelings onto the strangers I was looking at. I went home and wrote the lyrics imagining that the commuters were having telepathic conversations with each other. The questions I imagined them asking each other oscillated from sexual to confrontational: ‘Baby is it just enough? Tell me do you want it all? Baby are you feeling tough? Feeling tougher more than not?’”

The accompanying video was directed by Winston Case. Watch and support the artist via Bandcamp below.

Jessy Lanza – ‘All The Time’ tracklist:

01 Anyone Around

02 Lick In Heaven

03 Face

04 Badly

05 Alexander

06 Ice Creamy

07 Like Fire

08 Baby Love

09 Over And Over

10 All The Time

Hamilton’s electronic pop musician Jessy Lanza returns today with a brand new single and video, and we could not be more excited. Her first solo release since her 2016’s album Oh No (whose single “It Means I Love You” ended up as our favourite track of that year), “Lick In Heaven” was co-written by her frequent collaborator Jeremy Greenspan (one half of Junior Boys). If her future R&B sounds twinkling and dance-y at first, it actually deals with anger.

“I started with the 101 bass line in my studio in NYC sent it to Jer and he created the catchy refrain of the chorus and the Omnisphere, barbershop-type voice,” she commented. “This song is about being angry with people and not knowing what to do about it. I find that when I’m a certain combo of sad and angry I reach a point of provocation where I can’t stop myself from going nuclear.”

In the accompanying visuals, courtesy of director Winston H Case, Jessy Lanza is performing for a euphoric, over-the-top crowd, supposed to represent the audience of the “budget fictional cable show ‘Good Morning Ontario'”.

According to her socials, her new album is ready. We don’t know yet if “Lick In Heaven” will be featured on this new record but one thing is sure: we already can’t stop spinning the track.

[su_youtube_advanced url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3D7EEpdlY4″]

This video was directed by John Smith and reflects the whole idea of the career of Jessy : experimenting with electronic sounds and her voice. You’ll be happy to know that she has produced this album alongside Jeremy Greenspan, member of the Junior Boys who stated about the album on Facebook :

[su_quote]It has been a busy busy year. Along with the new Junior Boys album coming out in February, I’m really excited to finally be able to announce that there is a new Jessy Lanza album titled “Oh No” coming out in May on Hyperdub Records (and Geej Recordings in Canada). Jessy and I wrote this album together, and I’m so proud of it. hope you enjoy the video for the first single “It Means I love You”[/su_quote]

They will start their common tour in California in February 4 and will start in London on February 12. They will be at Le Botanique on March 1 when you’ll get to see our pretty faces ! You can see the artwork of the album below