V.V. Lightbody follows last year’s debut album Bathing Peach with sway inducing single “Baby, Honestly.”
V.V. Lightbody is the moniker of Vivian McConnell, a Chicago-based multi-instrumentalist that created her project V.V. Lightbody as a home for the tracks she “felt were too delicate to be played by her other bands”.
Her latest single “Baby, Honestly” showcases her off kilter and slanting vocals laid over “nap rock” sounds. She describes her sound as having “Cocktail lounge vibes”; a description that encapsulates the mood for most of her material as well as the genre.
There’s a lilting ebb and flow to the track that feels instantly classic, almost like it’s sepia-tinged. ”Baby, Honestly” calls to mind vinyl sofas, pastel colour rooms and smoking indoors, a fond harkening back to a romanticised bygone era.
The track possesses a dreamlike atmosphere, like a parallel world wrapped into a song. It has the confidence to meander in a directionless way in the best way possible. It glides along like free writing in the way that there’s an unmoored and erratic freedom to its twists and turns.
However, “Baby, Honestly” is not all ethereal floating and innocence; it is appropriately two faced, with biting lyrics hidden beneath a lush and charming soundscape.
The most prescient lyrics “Baby, honestly, you’re crazy for taking me seriously” are delivered with such saccharine sweetness that the timely gaps she leaves between each word is nearly missed. If you weren’t listening close enough, you’d get lulled into a false sense of security.
Musically the track misleads the casual listener in the most beautiful way, but listen carefully. Beneath the intricacy of the woozily plucked guitars hides a gloriously snarky side of V.V. Lightbody that one can only hope will continue into her future work.
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