Laila – Talk (2024)
Known for weaving raw vulnerability and fragility into infectious, slightly chaotic melodies, Laila captures the grittiness of life in a moving song. This is my introduction to Laila, but she is already turning heads internationally. Reaching far beyond North America, her tunes linger in the minds of audiences throughout Europe, South America and beyond. From the well-received 2023 track ‘Strangers at the Airport’ to 2024’s ‘I Hope It Kills You’, Laila grasps the tumultuousness of being a young adult in the 21st century; however, it is her new single ‘Talk’ that catches our ears today.
Considering her track titles – ‘I Hope It Kills You’, ‘My Heart Doesn’t Work Like That’ and ‘Sparks’, Laila’s music is a pure thrust of reality from title to melody. Delving into the complexities of relationships, ‘Talk’ explores the enigma of “casual affairs” or “situationships”. It’s nothing new, the situationship has always existed for a bit of fun without commitment but there is always a string somewhere. Capturing the disconcerting incident of one feeling more than the other and always coming back for more, ‘Talk’ is a raging rush of “oh bloody hell, why isn’t this working…I hate them anyway”. She explains:
“A classic tale: one person is deeply invested while the other insists things are casual. I wrote this song to make sense of a situationship I was in with another musician who lives in LA. We used to FaceTime for hours at a time each week. When I finally asked what we were, the answer I got was “talk”; not the 4-letter word I was expecting to hear.”
Following ‘I Hope It Kills You’, Laila shifts from the warm ballad laced with underly animosity to an upbeat, bouncy bubble of bubble-gum pink pop. Yet, while this doesn’t have the smiling assassin hatred, raw emotion continues to flutter about the laidback tune. Recorded and produced at Toronto’s Genesis Sound by Matt Snell, Robbie Brett, Josh Bowman (mixing) and Kristian Montano (mastering), ‘Talk’ is a combination of bold beats, synth-driven twinkles, and shimmering piano – all creating a smile-inducing pop tone.
While the melody itself is an enigmatic hazy soundscape, Laila’s vocals add a profound personal narrative to ‘Talk’. Hushed and subdued but with a bite of rage beneath, she oscillates between soothing charm and painful angst.
Find out more about Laila on her Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), Instagram, TikTok and Spotify.
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