FEATURE: Spotlight: Lou Hayter — Music Musings & Such

FEATURE:

Spotlight

Lou Hayter

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THERE are not many recent interviews or…

bits of information relating to Lou Hayter, but she has been in the industry for a while in a number of different projects. I was a fan of New Young Pony Club back in the day. The band were set up by London-based vocalist Tahita Bulmer and producer Andy Spence, who shared a love of Punk rock and Dance music. The founding pair began writing together, originally only for Bulmer to perform. Spence later assumed a larger role when they decided to form a proper band, and the duo recruited Lou Hayter (keyboards), Igor Volk (bass) and Sarah Jones (drums). I have taken that from Wikipedia, but it gives you a concise formation of the band who released three studio albums – their first, Fantastic Playroom, was released in 2007. Lou Hayter might not be a new name in music but, as a solo proposition, she is still coming through and many are looking forward to her debut album. I want to track back and then work my way to her latest single, just to give you a bit of information. Not only is Lou Hayter a D.J., but she was one half of Tomorrow’s World. Consisting of Jean-Benoît Dunckel and Lou Hayter, the duo’s eponymous album of 2013 is one I recommend people check out. In 2013, Hayter was interviewed by Refinery29. There was a great influence on her unique and eclectic fashion choices; not only a great artist and D.J. but a bit of a potential fashion.

She does discussed fashion in the interview, but I have selected questions where she talked about being on tour, and what her musical influences are:

“What is the toughest part of being on tour?

"Being away from your loved ones and friends — because I’m really close to them."

How do you solve the style challenges of life on tour?

"I’ve got it down to a fine art now as I’ve been touring for the last eight years. I’ve got travel versions of everything and I have a capsule wardrobe so it’s not too bad now. I buy duplicates of things that I like, so sometimes I just leave things in my suitcase and it’s all good to go. I have duplicates of all my cosmetics, too, so they just sit in the case."

What kind of music did you listen to growing up? How did it inform your current taste in music?

"I have older brothers and sisters, so in our house it was always Prince, Bowie, Human League, and early acid house as well. My parents always listened to Bacharach. And I was also a huge Madonna fan”.

I can hear a lot of Madonna in Lou Hayter’s recent work, but I shall come onto that a bit later. I think she has gone through various evolutions as an artist. One could not easily compare New Young Pony Club to her recent solo work in terms of sound; Tomorrow’s World is also a pretty different-sounding project. Their eponymous album is fantastic and has some real gems on it. Drowned in Sound reviewed it in 2013:

“Anyone who thought Air’s last album Le Voyage dans la Lune detracted from their dreamy, Sofia Coppola-ready electro-pop will breathe a sigh of relief at Tomorrow’s World: a new project from Jean-Benoît Dunckel with London singer Lou Hayter. Creating twinkling, spaced-out soundscapes with one toe still on the disco floor, it’s closer in spirit to Air’s Virgin Suicides score with a dash of fuzz carried over from Moon Safari. Forget the 'thin Air' accusations leveled at Dunckel’s solo album Darkel: Tomorrow’s World is pulsing, luscious stuff, guaranteed to grab the collars of Air’s attentive fan base.

Dunckel adds a layer of mystery to these eleven electronic pop songs: a kind of hazy dreaminess not unlike Boards of Canada’s Campfire Headphase. ‘Pleurer Et Chanter’ mixes spaced-out bass with piano and kick drums into a summery acid trip; ‘Think of Me’ plucks at strings over a slow-dance keyboard melody. Both make use of Hayter’s voice which is light but mischievous, somewhere between Blondie and Belle & Sebastian. She weaves through the downbeat piano of ‘Don’t Let Them Bring You Down’ (”It’s not the time of year that brings me down/It’s not the rain that’s falling down, down/It’s all the people who are not around”) and spits out single words on ‘Life on Earth’ in time with the slow, repeating rave synth.

Tomorrow’s World is a strong enough debut: there’s no doubting the quality of the songs here, and Dunckel and Hayter make emotional, Radio 2-ready electronic pop with enough letting go of the handrail to remind you they’re onto something original. ‘So Long My Love’, for example, builds suppressed guitar feedback into delicious trippy sound effects, while the glorious ‘Inside’ is a perfect finale, made of science fiction grime synths that chorus like John Murphy’s ‘Adagio in D Minor’. But several moments between are exactly the kind of wooziness we expect from Air… so why not release it on an Air album? These small snags aside, Tomorrow’s World is a record that shows Dunckel is (almost) ready to try out something new”.

Previous experiences and work with New Young Pony Club, and Tomorrow’s World has all sort of led to and fed into Lou Hayter’s new work. Her latest single, My Baby Just Cares for Me, has plenty of bounce and dance. It is a song that makes you want to move, and it is a song that 2020 really needs! Lou Hayter released Cherry on Top in 2018, and it is another bright and brilliant track that shows she is effortless and stunning as a solo artist. I think songs like Cherry on Top, and My Baby Just Cares for Me would sound great together on an album. Skint Entertainment talk about My Baby Just Cares for Me, and the rise of a brilliant artist:

“Effortlessly hopscotching between vintage acid and 80s Rn’B, insouciant Francophone pop and twinkling electro house, Lou Hayter has delivered something at once utterly unique and defiantly timeless with her much anticipated debut solo LP, released next year on Skint Records.

It has been a long time coming for London native Hayter, who first made her mark professionally as keyboardist for New Young Pony Club, one of THE bands at the epicentre of the white hot day-glo nu rave scene alongside the likes of the Klaxons and Test Icicles in 2006. But, to fully place her debut album in context, it is necessary to rewind a little bit – to the very beginning in fact, with Hayter growing up on a diet of Bowie, Prince, Human League and Jellybean-era Madonna while concomitantly learning classical piano from the age of five.

The flames of this deliciously varied musical palette were further stoked by trips to record shops in Soho with her brother (Soul Jazz was a particular obsession), but it was while studying in Cambridge that the match was well and truly struck – she used her student grant to buy a set of Technics and started putting on club nights, before moving to London and working at Trevor Jackson’s seminal Output Recordings, placing Hayter smack bang in the middle of all the action, with disco punk fever hitting full force and bands like the Rapture and LCD Soundsystem first breaking out.

The hugely successful, Mercury-nominated New Young Pony Club followed shortly after, but it’s through her subsequent output that she started to distil and refine her idiosyncratic tastes. And certainly, you can hear hints of both the New Sins, the 80’s New Wave duo she formed with Nick Phillips, and Tomorrow’s World, the swooning Gallic pop act she fronts alongside Air’s JB Dunckel, in her remarkable debut. Full to bursting with evocative electro-soul love letters to her home town of London alongside addictive disco torch ballads, it’s like Kylie meeting Mr Fingers or, Jam & Lewis producing Jane Birkin – something beautiful and melancholic yet sharply modern and new.

From the warm, woozy, lysergic harmonies of opener “Cherry on Top”, which sound like a beloved old cassette unravelling, to the fizzy, infectious “Cold Feet”, which calls to mind Lisa Lisa & Cult Jam at their most heartworn, taken in toto the album perfectly nails the essence of gorgeously nostalgic synth-pop with a twist; crisp, stylish and sophisticated music which heralds the next chapter of Lou Hayter quite nicely, actually. Her retro-futuristic results will give 2021 the pop fix it so desperately needs”.

I can hear some early Madonna in My Baby Just Cares for Me; maybe a bit of Kylie and some classic Acid and House. There are various shades here and there, but it is Lou Hayter’s singular drive and talent that defines the song and keeps it so fresh and addictive! I hope interviews do surface soon, as it would be good to hear more from Lou Hayter and get a sense of where she is now and what comes next. She recently appeared on Shaun Keaveny’s BBC Radio 6 Music show on his segment, All the Small Things – where guests salute a small and simple thing in life that gives them pleasure. Hayter selected the music of Steely Dan and, as a huge fan of them, she is alright by me! I wonder whether, when a debut album comes out (I think there are plans, but no firm release date is out there), there will be some Steely Dan visions included! I just want to bring in one more salute/review of My Baby Just Cares for Me from Beats Per Minute:

“Lou Hayter is a London-based singer, songwriter and producer who is perhaps best known for her work in New Young Pony Club. Now stepping out under her own name, Hayter is gearing up to release a debut album early next year and today she has delivered a tantalising taste of what’s to come with the single “My Baby Just Cares For Me”.

Making use of crystalline synths that interlock to create a retro-futuristic stage, Hayter saunters into “My Baby Just Cares For Me” with all the confidence and verve of someone who is on top of the world. While the sounds and textures all around continue to dazzle, a deeply infectious groove is set, and Hayter’s tone locks into it with sultry excellence as she tosses off lines like “you speak in English but your kiss is French.” You don’t stop to think about it because “My Baby Just Cares For Me” just continues to glide and bounce with a slowed-down-disco attitude, drawing you into a sexy slow dance with the singer that you won’t want to pull away from”.

Go and check out Lou Hayter, as I think we will see a lot more music from her in the next year; there is going to be a lot of people wanting to hear an album. With singles like Cherry on Top, and My Baby Just Cares for Me promising something golden and uplifting, I think we all need Lou Hayter’s music! From being a member of a band (New Young Pony Club), to a duo (Tomorrow’s World), the brilliant Lou Hayter is stepping out solo and is definitely going to be…