August 2012 and Kyla La Grange releases her debut album, ‘Ashes’. Folky and Florency, it’s full of epic tunes that, whilst perfectly solid, failed to stand out from the crowd and attract the mainstream.
Now, in 2014, La
Grange returns with a complete change of style.
Heck, if it worked for V V Brown…
The chauntese has been listening
to the likes of Burial and Four Tet, leading to a change to the extreme
opposite of her past material. Where ‘Ashes’
was full of guitars, folky harmonies and an expansive festival feel, Cut
Your Teeth is minimal, electronic and introspective. The production (from Jakwob - British electro
producer and friend of Nicola Roberts - whose work includes multiple remixes) consists
predominantly of an oscillating synth, a hand-clap beat and a deep bass, for a
sound that’s far darker and hauntingly spectral than before.
What remains is La Grange’s
beautiful vocal, still full of folk inflections as she tenderly sings the
chorus “you cut your teeth on the lack of answers and you come back home and it
don’t feel the same”. Cut Your Teeth marks a change for the
better and should see La Grange really coming into her own in 2014.
4/5
Listen: La Grange will be
releasing a new album later in the year.
