It’s difficult to know which element of LAPP’s new track, “Sunny”, to be most excited about: his voice, a chisel-edged eardrum pharmaceutical; the ironic song-writing – a super-confident tale of misplaced identity and certainty; or the lush instrumentation, giving your up-to-date press one button techniques a hefty kick down the stairs. We’re happy to go with the whole lot.
Categorising LAPP’s sound isn’t easy, not without hopping from genre to genre and referencing any number of classic albums and artists. There’s the louche saxophones of many a 70s seduction LP; the outrageously flexible vocals, which flit of smooth soul jazz to barbed Van Morrison in the space of mere seconds; the effortless tropical glide of the guitar, and the slyly devastating rhythm section which ambushes you at the end of the track, having dragged you into their lair.
The video to Sunny cleverly demonstrates the variety on offer by showing a shot of the protagonist surrounded by their record collection – there’s everything from Queen to Bob Dylan to Stevie Wonder to Average White Band. There are senses of all these and yet it’s a triumph of LAPP’s individual vision and talent that the sound, ultimately, is all his. Loosely based on the character of the same name in J.D. Salinger’s “Catcher in the Rye”, it tells the tale of a man determined to aid someone who he sees as needing his help but ultimately falls prey to his owns insecurities and human frailties.
LAPP is a story-writing singer, not a singer-songwriter. His music twists and winds around his lyrics to convey feeling and emotion, as opposed to the trend for looped melody and tagged-on lyrics as an after-thought. This is not just flash-in-the-pan clever, this is potentially game-changing song-writing, a return to honing your craft and truly understanding your influences.
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