JESSY LANZA - LOVE HALLUCINATION

Released: 28/07/23

The Canadian artist Jessy Lanza is a triple threat: a brilliant singer (like Elizabeth Fraser and Aaliyah she has a soprano vocal range), a genuinely phenomenal songwriter, and a formidable producer (not for nothing is she on the consistently excellent Hyperdub), whose tracks veer from being driven by the kind of intoxicating pointillistic beats (see ‘5785021’ from debut Pull My Hair Back) that the aforementioned Aphex would be proud of, to cut-glass 80s and 90s synth-inflected compositions that are as good as anything on Purple Rain (and I don’t say that lightly). On Love Hallucination, then, it’s the latter that is the overriding focus, with the incredible single ‘Limbo’ being perhaps the greatest song Lanza has written to date – but it wouldn’t be a Jessy Lanza album without at least a few tracks of out and out garage, and with the beautiful ‘Midnight Ontario’ we have yet more more proof that she is one of the most gifted and exciting electro-soul artists going.