Album Review: Through Water by Låpsley

Through Water is an expansion of Låpsley 's fluid soundscape which is dominated by ambient electronica, but the common thread which permeates it all is a sense of growth, understanding, and acceptance. Without coining the stereotypical phrase, 'coming of age', there truly is a sense of acknowledgement of the past, and anticipation of the future which lies at the heart of the album. This sentiment comes to fruition quite early on, in the likes of "My Love Was Like the Rain".

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Following a 2016 debut album that scored millions of streams and was later name-checked by Billie Eilish as an influence, England's Låpsley (Holly Lapsley Fletcher) stepped away from the music industry. Relocating from London to Manchester, she engaged in connective activities such as volunteer work and training as a doula before feeling inspired to work on music again. After a year, she moved back to the capital, joined a choir, immersed herself in the classic 4AD output of the '80s (This Mortal Coil, Cocteau Twins), and began writing songs.

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F ollowing the release of her precocious debut album, 2016's Long Way Home, bedroom auteur Holly Låpsley Fletcher took time away from music to take stock, to do voluntary work with teenagers, to train to be a doula and to inadvertently become a big influence on Billie Eilish. The palette of sounds she draws from on the long-awaited, and largely self-incubated, follow-up is familiar - her pitchshifted vocals lend her an androgyny at times, as on First, in which she gives the illusion of duetting with herself - while the ability to conjure emotionally potent songs from the most minimal of raw materials nods to James Blake. What is less familiar are her more outward-facing lyrics.

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O n her 2016 debut, Liverpudlian electronic pop singer Låpsley worked with a brains trust of songwriters and producers to try her hand at chart anthems, trip-hop and - in the joyful Operator - a disco track that ruled festival season. For her second album, she seems to have brushed away the lint left by an excess of collaborators, instead writing and producing everything herself with input from a sole engineer, and honing in on a singular, clean aesthetic. It opens with a reflection on the climate crisis, as she communes with glass, oil and water.

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