photo credit: Kenton Koneval
On October 9, Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter Leila Sunier will release her sophomore EP Where Everything Is Perfect (pre-order). Today Leila Sunier shared the album’s lead single “Sober/Without” with
PopMatters and the song is available now
on all streaming services to add to your favorite playlists.
PopMatters says, “Dreamlike and traversing a terrain somewhere between comforting, semi-conventional pop and other-worldly avant-something, Sunier gives a stunning testament to her powers. She’s a rare performer in our times who can seamlessly marry wild, imaginative production and performance with consistent, inspiring compositional skills. ‘Sober/Without’ bodes well for the rest of the collection and for Sunier’s recording future.”
About the song Leila Sunier adds:
“‘Sober/Without’ has always acted as the project’s preface. Immediately, I lay it all on the line with that first lyric, saying “I’ll figure it out when I’m sober,” while admitting, “I’m hardly sober”. That right there is the core of it all. From there, it could go either way. Releasing this music almost five months into a global pandemic has certainly given me some thought towards the setting of the song. I wrote this song in the summer of last year, and the entire story is centered around the ‘bar’. Today, the setting isn’t really a viable one. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that culture around it doesn’t still permeate. It makes you wonder, and it makes you hope that people you know are doing alright.”
Few musicians manage to explore inner turmoil coupled with intrepid emotionality the way that emerging artist Leila Sunier does. In a new decade where her peers seem increasingly hellbent on shortening their verses and choking out their choruses, Leila is refreshingly patient with her storytelling and explorative in her song form. Influenced by the likes of
Angel Olsen,
Perfume Genius, Bright Eyes, and
Joni Mitchell, her songwriting lives on the fringes of what is considered alternative rock, folk, and indie-pop. On the heels of her surrealist debut EP,
If Only To Bleed Out The White Noise, she continues to seamlessly blend genres on her sophomore release
Where Everything Is Perfect. On the EP’s title, Leila says, “I’ve known this was going to be the project title for a long time. To me, that line represents an acknowledgement that everything is not perfect. Everything is a mess.”
Where her debut often looked internally, Leila Sunier’s follow-up EP casts a discerning eye on external issues of substance, friendship, and romance. The songs themselves remain to be personal and Sunier’s lyrics are sharper than ever. Poetic if not sarcastically melodramatic couplets delightfully abound the multi-artist’s repertoire, most notably on “Cold Irises”, where she likens a deteriorating friendship to a wilting flower, lamenting on how “I thought we shared a garden/and now I’m the only one pulling weeds.” The metaphor of a garden repeats itself in the closing track, “Part of Me” and sonically throughout the project.
Aided by the prowess of the Grammy nominated producer, Alex Newport (City and Colour, At The Drive In, Bloc Party), Leila Sunier continues to cement her voice as an engaging and thoughtful artist on the rise.
