Those interested in dreamy pop music might well have recently caught Take a Ride, May’s debut single release from Teesider’s Jak Lvr. Down tempo, with an interesting groove and complimented by dreamy vocals, Take a Ride sounded like the type of wonderful guitar/synth/abstract pop defined by Empire of the Sun in the mid 2000’s. Coming out of nowhere, Take was a gem of a surprise from an unknown artist with an unknown pedigree.
By the time Take was quickly followed up by July’s ‘Call it love’ single, a more upbeat 1975 meets the Pet Shop Boys groove, it was soon becoming clear that Jak might be a one to watch and focus began to settle on Lvr’s full, and debut, EP ‘Call it love’ which is set for release on September 10th.
“Yeah, I suppose the reaction to the first few singles has been really nice, and people have been saying nice things about it which is nice” confirms Jak when we catch up “but honestly I’ve got so many pieces I’m creating at the minute it’s hard to keep up with what’s out there and what I’m working on”.
Caught in the middle of currently working on some folk pieces (“I’m almost sure these won’t be released but I’m obsessed with Father John Misty at the minute and whatever music I’m focused on tends to be the type of music I want to create”) Jak talks about the Call it Love EP as a right of passage of sorts (“I was in a band before this project and I’m moving quickly away from that so this EP is almost a bridge between where I am and where I was”) as he moves into new textures and sounds.
A blend of electro-pop, Call it Love (the EP) showcases the spectrum of Lvr’s palate, and whilst the two early releases have been more down-tempo grooves, Never See Me Cry is a full-on, hands in the air, electro banger and EP closer F.E.T.S drops more into the abstract textures of the Flaming Lips, complete with interesting samples and dreamy backing vocals. It’s clear that Call it Love showcases an artist with the ability to bring to life a number of different electronic styles and textures; something LVR is keen to carry on working with; “yeah, so I’ve done about 20 folk songs now though that’s starting to lead me back to the more electronic stuff so I’ve got a feeling that’s going to become my focus again, which is nice as it’ll let me think about how to follow up Call it love. I think being creative tends to blend genres into each other anyway, if you follow what you’re interested in, it tends to be quiet circular and bring you back to the start”).
Though plans for a live release party are stalled at the minute (“it was a bit too late to get to a release event given we weren’t sure what was going to be open or not”) but there is defiantly plans to get out and promote the EP with some live shows at some point (“we’re thinking maybe about Christmas time, but we’ll still working out the plans so we’ll see nearer the time.”)
With so many ideas, and so many creative muses to follow, it might be hard to pin Lvr’s next step down. But as ‘Call it love’ proves, it’ll be well worth the wait.