SOPHOMORE EP EUPHORIA OUT NOV 12

Meeanjin/Brisbane-based producer-vocalist powerhouse LÂLKA today returns with her latest single, ‘Hold Me (feat. Evangeline)’, and announces the forthcoming release of her second EP, Euphoria, due out independently on November 12. LISTEN TO ‘HOLD ME’ HERE.

Finding inspiration in the comfort of cyberspace, ‘Hold Me (feat. Evangeline)’ muses on the very real, felt meaningfulness of virtual interactions and the reality of internet spaces, a means of not only providing a sense of escapism but a channel too, to stay connected to the outside world. With foundation-shaking bass and a melange of digital percussion that cuts through with palpable sass and attitude, Evangeline’s mantra-like refrain bristles with restlessness, constantly writhing itself into new shapes and formations – slowed-down, sped-up, pitched-shifted, tone-altered, chopped up, and rearranged like a collage in high-speed motion.

Speaking to the release, LÂLKA shares “For the last 18 months, all I wanted to listen to and make was euphoric music despite feeling like I was drowning in anxiety and grief. I spent (and still do spend) a lot of time on the internet, having virtual interactions with other people and experiencing raves in cyber-space. I’m acutely aware of how easy it is to belittle those experiences, but these interactions are real – and equally as meaningful as IRL experiences – despite being on the internet. The lyrics of ‘Hold Me’ perfectly encapsulate how lonely or trapped many of us often feel and how we yearn for internet interactions when we’re been physically distanced.”

Like the best, most affecting work of counterparts Charli XCX, SOPHIE and 100 gecs, ‘Hold Me‘ wraps a sincere, humanistic heart beneath a maximalist, hyper-modern, avant exterior. At any given moment, ‘Hold Me‘ straddles several worlds at once – authenticity and artifice, impossible beauty and contorted eccentricity, the physical potency of LÂLKA’s rave-ready production underlying the track’s tech-positive message. Filtering her iteration of hyper pop through the lens of her lived experiences as a woman of colour, ‘Hold Me‘ is yet another palatial, brazen, glitchy offering from the multi-hyphenate pop experimentalist.

Featuring Naarm / Melbourne dark pop singer Evangeline, ‘Hold Me‘ follows on the heels of LÂLKA’s debut EP from earlier in the year, The Way Music Looks, which drew acclaim from triple j Unearthed (Feature Artist), Bandcamp, NME, Acclaim, leading German art, fashion and music outlet Kaltblut, Pilerats, Life Without Andy and more. Written amidst the isolation of pandemic-induced lockdowns and social distancing, her forthcoming sophomore EP Euphoria, captures the competing emotional extremes of this era, as transcendent and sublime as it is blisteringly dark, as riddled with anxiety and grief as it is searching for elation.

‘Hold Me ft. Evangeline‘ is out now, buy/stream it here.

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