Tag: Single Review: Less

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Kirsten Ludwig Shares Glistening “Less”

Initially staring her career in Calgary and currently based in Toronto, acclaimed Canadian singer/songwriter, musician and producer Kirsten Ludwig has spent the past decade writing, developing and recording a sound that transcends city boundaries and exists in perpetual transition while supporting her work touring.

Ludwig’s full-length debut, 2018’s We Get It Now, created with Colin Stewart is a haunt-folk album that touched upon ethos of loss, grief, anger and fleeting optimism received critical praise and reached #19 on national college charts. The album’s critical and commercial success led to a headlining European tour.

Ludwig’s sophomore album Sunbeam is slated for a November 10, 2023 release through Oscar St. Records, the Victoria, BC-based artist-run indie label founded by The New Pornographers‘ and Frontperson‘s Kathryn Calder. Created with Layten Kramer and Colin Stewart, the nine-song album is a decided change of sonic and aesthetic direction with the Canadian artist embracing an 80s-inspired synth rock/synth pop sound.

As the material from Sunbeam began to materialize in mid-2020, Ludwig relocated cross-country. Wrestling with incessant chronic pain and homesickness, the album and its creative process came to a grinding halt. At the time, it was unknown if she would ever return to it. But moments before defeat, Ludwig summoned the determination to revive and finish the album.

For the Canadian artist, Sunbeam is aptly named — fully formed and a return to self. Thematically, the album touch upon themes of solitude, self-discovery, and the search for connection in a seemingly disconnected world. While sonically, the album sees Ludwig shapeshifting genres including indie rock, psych pop and synth pop throughout, the album is rooted in the same vulnerability and inner workings that she has always drawn from.

Built around shimmering synths, a motorik groove punctuated with relentless, driving drums, Ludwig’s ethereal delivery and chanted vocal-driven hook and chorus, “Less,” is an anthemic and decidedly Kate Bush-like track that seemingly evokes ice slowly cracking.

“It’s an exploration of rewriting patterns, changing directions, and choosing softness,” Ludwig says. ” As cheesy as it sounds, ‘Less’ is my way of acknowledging that it’s possible to let the goodness of others melt away your ice-queen tendencies,” she continues. “I spent over half of my twenties feeling numb to the world and, one day, a warm wave of tenderness engulfed me. It’s a head-nod to those who keep showing up for me. ‘Less’ started out as a quaint indie song with just me and my guitar. Layten Kramer (co-producer) and I knew we wanted something different from the song and we both decided to just have fun with it. My last record was this heavy, cathartic release I had been carrying around for years, so allowing myself to be playful was a new experience.”

The visualizer features gorgeous, dreamlike watercolored animation by Amélie Haeck.  

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Now if you had been frequenting this site over the last few months of 2016, you’d recall that with the release of “Help Yourself” and several other singles the Welsh-born, London-based singer/songwriter and guitarist Sarah Howells, best known as Bryde quickly exploded into both the British and international scene as she received praise from Nylon, The Line of Best Fit and Earmilk and airplay from BBC Radio 6, BBC Radio Wales, Radio X and Huw Stephens’ BBC Radio 1 show for a sound that’s been compared to the likes of Jeff Buckley, Sharon Van Etten, Ben Howard and London Grammar while thematically focusing on complex, ambivalent and hopelessly entangled relationships.

Howells’ previous single and her JOVM debut,  “Wouldn’t That Make You Feel Good” was a boozy and woozy dirge in which the Welsh-born, London-based singer/songwriter and guitarist’s aching vocals are paired with bluesy yet shoegazer-leaning power chords reminiscent of  PJ Harvey, in a song that built up into a cathartic and explosive bridge before gently fading out.  Howells’ latest single “Less” continues her successful collaboration with producer Bill Ryder-Jones and it’s a viscerally forceful 90s alt rock-leaning track featuring an alternating quiet, loud, quiet song structure with an anthemic and cathartic hook. And while still channeling PJ Harvey, the song also manages to nod at Liz Phair, Hole and others, complete with an unflinching honesty and vulnerability.