The Japanese House - Lilo

Across her four EPs to date - from 2015’s ‘Pools To Bathe’ through to last year’s ‘Saw You In A Dream’ - the music of The Japanese House has gone through a beautiful, considered progression. Amber Bain’s minimal, glacial beginnings have slowly, confidently been built upon, and ‘Saw You In A Dream’ saw huge choruses and chunkier song structures burst out of the ambience gloriously.

New song ‘Lilo’, which looks like the first preview of an upcoming debut album, marks the start of a new chapter in more ways than one. While the EPs have primed the Dirty Hit-signed singer for a debut album to treasure, it’s the subject matter of ‘Lilo’ itself that make the comeback feel like a revelation.

“I needed someone to depend upon / I was alone, I was emotional,” the track begins, before Amber recounts being introduced to a friend of a friend who turned out to be exactly the person she wanted and needed. “[‘Lilo’] is a reminder to me that I am good at falling in love and I can survive falling out of it,” she says of the song, and there’s an unavoidable sense of serenity to the track, fuelled both by the continually assured sound of her music, and her new start in life.

From the off, the singer’s vocals are pushed even further to the front, no longer shrouded in effects and allowed to fully hammer their point home. It doesn’t make ‘Lilo’ a ham-fisted splurge of emotion, though: her clever, intricate percussion provides the perfect backing, every element rising perfectly together to welcome what’s set to be a glorious new chapter for The Japanese House.