I want you to close your eyes and think of the sound that plays in your head when a bad vibe falls across you. What do you hear? Perhaps you hear a roaring wind, or static on a TV where someone keeps pushing the Volume Up button, or thunder and crashing waves on a beach in the midst of a hurricane. Perhaps you hear something in between. Perhaps you hear all of these sounds at once, or perhaps you hear nothing at all.
Laila Smith has distilled all of these sounds into her new EP, Something Dreadful Is Going To Happen, a study not only in blending different forms of music, but in understanding the manifestation of grief. As a jazz singer in a different time, Smith uses her sonorous voice as part of the symphony which across five songs examines denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance, though not in that order. After all, processing grief never goes from A to B with ease.
Akin to Florence Welch and Kate Bush, Smith eschews any of the basic pop sentiment in her music, instead turning to her jazz background for influence and embodying experimental elements such as sudden bursts of distortion, atmospheric synth pads, small symphonies, and electronic noise. The resulting compositions reflect different mental states rather than simple pieces of music, and yearn to evoke emotion. On the final track “The Heat Goes Down”, the strings keen over the otherwise sparse instrumentation, sounding like an invisible force tugging at the heart. Smith calls this stage “tender” rather than “acceptance”, as even in the moments where the pain starts to subside, coming to terms with grief still doesn’t come easy.
Each of the EP’s other tracks plays with sound to demarcate a Kubler-Ross stage:
- “I Don’t Think of You”, channeling denial, has a lighter air, using indie folk elements to give the song more sunshine to cast away any shadows.
- “I’ll Do Anything” shifts between softer moments and harsh bursts of emotion, playing with dynamics to symbolize the balancing act of bargaining.
- “Foregone Conclusion” sounds detached – much like depression – with the instruments and Smith’s voice echoing from the distance. Its short length – fifty-five seconds – suggests it is not a stage on which Smith enjoys doting too much time, and I assume the same is true for most others. But it makes for a marvelous interlude in the middle of the record.
- “I Needed You To Know” channels anger, but the ethereal music insinuates less of a full-throated attack or outrage and more of a withdrawn, calculated, and measured emotion that stews in the soul.
Smith has plenty of personal background to influence the vibrations on her new EP. From her experiences as a young performer in adult spaces, her studies of social theory at Harvard, and her labor organization work, she molds trauma and overwhelmed souls and tales of individual and collective struggle into her music. It makes Something Dreadful Is Going to Happen an intriguing spiritual work, a painting of the modern mind many years into a busy life.
For those seeking a simply beautiful collection of music, Laila Smith’s new EP fits the bill: It captures Smith’s association with grief in brief, doesn’t overload the listener with too much musically or emotionally, and presents itself as a thoughtful and well-honed work of art.
Take a listen to “I’ll Do Anything” from Something Dreadful Is Going to Happen below. And for the curious, Smith has also developed an online experience to accompany the album; it feels like an old Geocities website for those who remember the Internet of the late-1990s. Check that out here.
Written by Will Sisskind
