After introducing the character of Papalious Stokely with the ‘L.A. Salami’s Walkabout’ EP, L.A. Salami builds towards the January 31st release of its second chapter, ‘Self Portrait In Sound’, by sharing its lead track ‘We’ll Solve It After’.
‘We’ll Solve It After’ examines a relationship which seems to be doomed from the start. Yet it’s something both partners are more than willing to overlook as they’re caught up in the moment. At the same time, however, there’s the nagging realisation that reality will eventually return with a vengeance. As the song’s insistent hook sighs, “Hey, forget it. We’ll solve it after.”
Whereas the initial EP found Papalious Stokely exploring the dark underbelly of a generic global metropolis, ‘Self Portrait In Sound’ is more introspective. It simmers with angst – losing and lacking love, fading friendships, and trying to redirect those personal failings that you’re irresistibly drawn to. It all comes to a head in the desolate and defeated denouement of ‘Come Back For The Rest Of Me’.
“This EP is a self-portrait of sorts, in sound. Of someone that once was, and who can still be found somewhere,” says L.A. Salami. “Things are forever changing but this was someone at some point, and could still yet be what I become. So I called it the ‘Self Portrait In Sound’ EP.”
While the themes have evolved in ‘Self Portrait In Sound’, so too has the music. It steps beyond the skeletal spoken word of the previous instalment, with one foot in the stripped-back poetry of the Greenwich Village sound and another in the bolder productions of the modern alt-folk scene.
L.A. Salami’s two albums to date, ‘Dancing With Bad Grammar’ (2016) and ‘The City of Bootmakers’ (2018), have seen the London-based artist present a singular vision. His evocative, poetic lyrics span everything from grand existential questions to vignettes of everyday life as well as the affairs and anxieties of modern Britain. As NPR enthused, his “poetry channels the fierceness I first heard in Bob Dylan’s Highway 61 Revisited, but with a prowess found in today’s best hip-hop.”
