Lia Ices – Thousand Eyes
SoundCloud
Lia Ices’ third full-length, Ices, finds her once again exploring new territory, or rather territories, as she leaves behind the piano balladry and singer-songwriter genres for something more like a mixed bag of selected world sounds and some of the more appealing aspects of American pop. Lest we begin to think that Ices may have tried to force too much into the mix, it should be known that this array is more the result of her embracing what she came in contact with naturally. “We allowed everything we loved to find its way in: Persian percussion, hip hop beats, lo-fi, hi-fi, Pakistani pop, Link Wray, Jason Pierce, gospel, dub. We developed new systems; we worked with synthesis, software and samples; we became producers. The Hudson Valley was home base, but I wanted to keep flying. I wrote songs in California, recorded vocals in Atlanta and worked with Clams Casino in Brooklyn. For the first time, Lia Ices felt like an inclusive project with its own identity, not just a name.” Here Ices takes on her true sound via experimentation and open-mindedness — thus the eponymous album title, Ices.
Ices is rhythmically interesting as it utilizes world sounds as the foundation for the pop melodies with her voice so cooly embedded into each one. The varied textures, native yet sleek, quickly reveal an aim at overall vibe not content, and in this sense, Ices succeeds. The album starts strong with 90s “alt”-tinged chiller “Thousand Eyes” and infectious island jam “Higher”, after which Ices slows the pace and moodiness ensues. Just as the middle begins to sag, “Creature” drops us in the middle of an eerie, enchanted atmosphere that re-animates our senses to fully absorb the album’s closing down tempo jams.
Overall, Ices is diverse in its influences but unified in its posture of relaxed receptiveness. The album ushers us into intriguing open spaces and inspires us to enjoy them. The appeal is in the way she boldly pushes pop music through so many filters, each one an experience drawn from her underlying creative concept. “While we have evolved, we are still animals. We respond to planets, patterns and cycles. We require the sounds of our origins. We live in the future but stay bound to the primitive and primordial. We will always want tribe, we will always want rhythm, we will always need music to guide us into our deepest sense of what it means to be human. So we hear sounds from all over the planet in this album. We devour so much music, and with this album we allowed ourselves to claim bits from all of it.” Ices sets the scene — fundamental but lush, primal yet modern — and we can’t help but engage.
