Understudy
Lapsley
Newcomer Lapsley’s voice is airily delicate. At the same time, it sounds like someone who has seen much of the world, with a certain weariness and vulnerability to it.
The repetition of phrases on Falling Short suggests a familiarity with difficult times: “And it’s times like these, and it’s days like/It’s been a long time coming but I’m falling short.”
She could be talking about rent, she could be talking about something far more personal.
The songs draw you in slowly, but surely. On the confessional Brownlow, she is achingly honest when she sings: “I wouldn’t say that I was known for doing the right thing/I wouldn’t say that I was always comfortable in my own skin.”
With just four songs, she creates a cohesive music world that is moving and beguiling. Maybe it is the association to Lapland that Lapsley evokes or the haunting electronica that she conjures, but there is something decidedly Scandinavian about Understudy. It comes as a surprise to find that she hails from Merseyside, Britain. And at only 18, she sounds mature beyond her years.
The buzz has been building steadily over the last year. Her bedroom-recorded Monday EP was embraced on Soundcloud and she played at Glastonbury. She has since been making her way onto lists of artists to watch.
Never mind the title of the EP, she is no one’s understudy.

The Great Escape
831
The plaintive violin wail on the opening track is a feint, for 831 soon launch into an energetic number.
With other songs such as the kinetic Shake Shake and fervent Iron Man, the Taiwanese band have no intention of abandoning the youthful catchy rock found on their previous album, The Last Day Of Summer (2012) – not just yet. But at least lead vocalist A-pu is sounding less like a dead ringer for Mayday’s Ashin.
One of the most interesting tracks here is Monster, in which the protagonist imagines he is being swallowed up by life: “A monster gnawing at me bite by bite, heart getting numb day by day.”
There is startling realisation at the end of the song: “I let myself turn into the most frightening monster.”
(ST)