To record her first full-length, Mirrors the Sky, London singer-songwriter-producer Lyla Foy had to leave the city. She hauled her instruments and equipment out into the English countryside, where she recorded herself performing songs on overcast beaches, in deep woods, or in sunny fields. As she told the 405 recently, “One of my trips took me up to the Lake District, and another to the blustery coast of Cornwall, during a storm. There are birds and goats to be heard all over the recordings, if you listen closely.” Returning to London, she convened with her bandmates to touch up the recordings with keyboards, drums, and vocals, working to complement the rustic demos while preserving their airy minimalism.
The result might be best described as a digital pastoral: sequences and synthesizers blending with live instruments to create the kind of introverted, outdoorsy reverie most commonly associated with acoustic folk. Foy’s songs are both lush and low-key, intimate and surprisingly intricate. She layers beats generously but carefully, alternating between buoyant (“I Only”, with its percolating intro) and bittersweet (“Only Human”, with its insistent snare tap). Except on the relatively aerodynamic “Feather Tongue”, which could easily be remixed into a throbbing dance number suitable for a meadow rave, Foy’s concern isn’t rhythm but texture and tapestry. The tempos are generally slow and rigid, which fits the general atmosphere of the record and gives you a better opportunity to admire her craft.
Given the various geographies that contributed to these songs, the mood on Mirrors the Sky can be too narrow. When it changes, it moves from gloomy to gloomier, especially on “Rumour”, which trudges along on the glummest reggae-dirge beat imaginable. And yet, Foy peppers these songs with enough flourishes to prevent the album from becoming too predictable or claustrophobic. She has an ear for ambient noise: It sounds like someone’s rubbing a balloon on “Only I” and who knows what that din is on “No Secrets”? Car keys nervously jangled in a coat pocket? Billiard balls being ground into dust? That the source of the sound is never clear only makes it more ominous.
Over this burbling electronic folk music, Foy writes impressionistic lyrics that prove more inquisitive than confessional, and she sings in a robust and expressive whisper, as though she’s letting the listener eavesdrop on a private, unself-conscious moment. Yet, her truest gift may be for writing dreamy, shimmery, extremely catchy hooks that lift these songs out of their depths. Her songs measure the distance between lovers and document her attempts to either erase or create that space. “Am I allowed to love you yet?” she asks on “No Secrets". She doesn’t sound angry or hurt; that line isn’t rhetorical or accusatory. Instead, she sounds like she’s lamenting so many lost opportunities for happiness.
Mirrors the Sky is actually Foy’s first release under her own name, after playing for a few years under the pseudonym WALL. Under that guise she was routinely compared to the xx for her downcast gothicisms, but these new songs have more in common with Nick Drake, Vashti Bunyan, Sibylle Baier, and other otherworldly folk artists. (Foy even covered Karen Dalton’s “Something on Your Mind” during her WALL days.) It’s apt that she tore down the WALL, with all its misleading Pink Floyd associations, for this album: Mirrors the Sky reflects a subtle yet effective refinement of her sound, as she tweaks these elements and influences to create music that is both familiar and idiosyncratic.
