“Bitch, I Love Life!”: Låpsley On Sexuality, Acceptance, And Creating Her Best Album Yet
"I would be like ‘I identify as queer, I identify as bisexual’, but I was still struggling with that."
“I think about the glass running out of sand,” are the first words you hear from Låpsley on her new album Through Water.
Coming from a 23-year-old, the statement could seem morbid, almost dramatic, but it doesn’t feel that way — and what follows is a starkly beautiful collection of songs that square up to the reality of becoming an adult in a fractured society.
Through ten tracks, Holly Lapsley Fletcher touches topics as apparently simple as love and heartbreak, and as complex as climate change, gender, and sexuality.
Four years on from her debut album Long Way Home, which launched her onto festival stages around the world, Låpsley has returned with a sophomore album that is both delicate and strong — having found comfort in herself, she’s now ready to share it with the world.
Ebb And Flow
Water and nature are central themes within the album, with the title track, and interlude ‘Leeds Liverpool Canal’, sampling recordings of canals and rivers taken by Fletcher during the writing process.
“I wanted to talk about something that had duality,” Fletcher told Music Junkee over the phone from the UK. “I feel being a young person, it’s so extreme. You either feel like you’re sailing through life or you feel you’re drowning and the fucking world is ending. I felt like the concept of water is a really good metaphor for that.”
“You either feel like you’re sailing through life or you feel you’re drowning and the fucking world is ending.”
“This water runs deep in my family” is repeated over modulating synths and flowing water on the latter track, while the title track sees the young singer reciting a speech by her father — a scientist and climate change activist.
“I guess it was always on my mind,” Fletcher says. “I always write about what I’m thinking about and climate change is one of those things. Growing up with my dad, climate change was always going to contain itself in the conversation since I was a child and I felt, you know what? I got to write so many songs about it I might as well choose one of these songs to be on the record.”
The result is a slow building and affecting track, asking what she — and, by extension, we — can do to make change.
“I’m not like my Dad. I don’t know the exact science,” she admits, when asked why they felt the need to approach the topic head on. “I don’t have any solution, but I can talk about it and put it into a song or approach in whatever I do; what it feels like in the middle of the shit storm.
“It’s so interesting to question whether you have any power over what you do? I feel we still need awareness. It’s a fucking issue. Never mind the fact there’s no solution. So my whole vibe is to continue talking about the issues that young people face, and what in particular I’m worried about.”
Being A Womxn
This pull to activism extends to Fletcher’s sexuality — something which she hasn’t openly discussed before now.
‘Womxn’, a vibrant reflection on gender and sexuality, is the first time Fletcher has addressed her own sexuality and space within the queer community.
“I guess it expands on more than just my own sexuality,” she tells me. “My sexuality is my personal pride and I really struggled with accepting it, and how I was going be an activist about it. I would be like ‘I identify as queer, I identify as bisexual’, but I was still struggling with that.”
“I would be like ‘I identify as queer, I identify as bisexual’, but I was still struggling with that.”
Whether I speak about being a queer individual, whether I speak about being a woman, or just whatever it is — that’s something I can be an activist for. Especially with climate change. I guess I will speak about things that I’m passionate about but I’m in no way qualified to necessarily change the world. I do what I feel I can and what I feel I’m comfortable with.”
The singer credits her trans and queer friends, as well as the strong LGBTIQ movement in general, for making her feel comfortable within the community.
“I found my soul and passion within the whole community and movement, not just my specific sexuality. We’re all equal, but we don’t necessarily fit in. That’s what drove it.”
Growing Pains
Personal growth was a key point for Fletcher when pulling together the new album, as well as These Elements — an EP released last December as a preview of what was to come. Tracks like ‘Drowning’ and ‘First’ explore Fletcher’s youth, her relationship with her parents, as well as how her perception of both of those things has changed.
“I’ve been working on myself while I’ve been away/Hope you would notice, hope you would love me more this way/So be my teacher, be my saviour,” she sings on ‘First’, an excavation of her expectations surrounding new relationships.
“I’m talking about being unhealthily obsessive,” she explains. “When I fall in love with something, I put them on a massive pedestal. I can become obsessed with them…it’s a kind of idealistic obsession.”
“You are a product of what you listen to and what you surround yourself with,” Fletcher tells me, explaining why Through Water is sonically and lyrically bigger and bolder than her debut.
Aggressive percussion and siren-like synths punctuate throughout, stepping away from the paired back production of breakout tracks ‘Station’ and ‘Hurt Me’. Lyrically, the artist is harsher — on herself, on others, on their emotions.
“As I got older I found myself exploring and listening to more people and found this change within myself,” says Fletcher, citing artists including Kate Bush, Anohni, Crystal Castles, and Caribou as influences on the new album — which was produced and written entirely by herself.
“I was reclaiming myself, taking back control. I wanted to create a pop album that was real.”
“I was reclaiming myself, taking back control. I wanted to create a pop album that was real,” she says, when asked about the decision to go it alone. “I took the time off that I needed, and now here I am. Take me at face value… …I want fans to listen to the album and hear honesty. Not just a sad album, not just a happy album, but both.
“Bitch, I love life!” Fletcher yells at the end of our interview. “This is the first time I can call myself a performer. I’m so happy, and I’m never usually happy with my work.”
When asked why this is, the chat comes full circle: “I think it comes from being a 23-year-old who knows themselves, instead of being a 19-year-old who fucking hates life and living.”
Through Water is out now via Remote Control/XL Recordings
Patrick Campbell is a writer and DJ based in Melbourne. He is on Twitter.