Neu Låpsley

: Holly Lapsley Fletcher
Based: Liverpool
Listen: Soundcloud.com/hollylapsleyfletcher
Similar to: James Blake

A good chunk of people listening to Låpsley’s ‘Station’ will have presumed, quite naturally, that the song was being sung by both a girl and a guy. Holly Fletcher’s light, effect-free vocals enter the frame from the beginning. After that, it’s anything but commonplace. Pitch-shifts swerve across the scene, eventually matching up to form a honeyed, complex and daringly minimal pop track. Every second of it belongs to the 17-year-old. She sets, matches and confounds expectations all at once, in 3 absorbing minutes.

After last year’s ‘Monday’ EP, ‘Station’ shows her setting a stall. Other interests beyond production range between sailing and photography, and it’s easy to see the latter creeping into her music, a trigger-happy hazy filter matching up with distinct minimialsm. These days it might be less of a gutsy move than it used to be to work with empty space instead of overdone cacophony, but in a post-xx landscape Låpsley’s the first artist in a good while to work with these tools while still managing to stand out.