Lav's Music Corner

For the first rapid fire review segment of 2025 I wanted to take a look at some hyperpop records that have been garnering a lot of attention, or that we've been covering over on Ringtone Magazine. saoirse dream  - saoirse dream Let's start with the easy one. I like this Saoirse Dream record quite a bit and you should listen to it. She combines the digital sounds of contemporary hyperpop with flavors of 90s rock like grunge and shoegaze into a genre she calls Wizard Sleaze. I know all of that because I interviewed Catherine, the girl behind Saoirse Dream about the album for Ringtone Magazine and caught a ripping live show from her the week the album dropped. For that reason I'm not going into detail to try and pick the record apart track by track, instead I'll just give it a certified Lavender seal of approval and encourage you to try the record out yourself. 7.5/10 Club Shy Room 2 EP - Shygirl Despite never being a massive fan of Shygirl's first few albums, I went ...

I did like 1 EP review for the entire month of February so let's catch up on what's been going on in the short form.  Club Shy  EP - Shygirl You could certainly describe me as a Shygirl skeptic for quite a while now. While her talent is obvious and her versatility is a strong suit that very few of her contemporaries possess. Though her vocals are often compelling and she has tapped into some interesting sonic fusions, too much of her material just feels like such a mash-up of random styles that it becomes nothing. The one track I really liked from Shygirl up to this point was BDE  which features Slowthai, and we're not going there right now.  So I didn't exactly go into this new 15-minute EP expecting some of Shygirl's best material yet, but that's exactly what we ended up with. Of all the styles she's dabbled in really directly in the past these clubby pop songs seem to fit her the best. The first one that hooked me was tell me  with Boys Noize whose repeat...

FKA Twigs is one of the most acclaimed voices in all of contemporary R&B music. Across two studio albums she has teamed up with a world class selection of producers to create a futuristic and off kilter style of R&B entirely her own and has been met with massive critical acclaim for almost everything she's done. Caprisongs  was carefully marketed as a mixtape rather than a follow-up studio album and trades out grander thematic concepts for shorter tracks that cover a wide variety of different sounds and styles. Review By Lav: Like most people on Earth who have ever heard FKA Twigs music I really enjoy it. A few years ago I called Magdalene  a top 5 album of 2019 and in that same year called her single cellophane  my single of the year. Her talent is absolutely whimsical and manages to display truly raw vulnerabilities but with a staunch and occasionally even intimidating confidence that is absolutely mystical. On top of that she has an ability to conceptualize pro...

Arca is a genre blending producer and vocalist who first made a name for herself with productions credits on albums like Kanye West's Yeezus , FKA Twigs LP1  and Bjork's Vulnicura . In the past few years she has risen to fame as a leading voice and frequent collaborator in the hyperpop movement, culminating in last years critically acclaimed KiCk i . Throughout the 2nd half of the year Arca dropped numerous singles from a trilogy of sequels and then released the projects one day after another in the week leading up to their originally scheduled release, followed by a surprise fifth entry into the series.  Review By Lav: While Arca may not be one of the most high profile voices in music anyone who has been paying attention knows that she's contributed as much as anybody in the past decade. At first it was largely in the shadows as a virtuoso producer, in recent years she has had a major coming out party not only with her own music, but her own personality. Given that Arca is...

Arca is a Venezuelan based record producer who first emerged working behind the scenes on projects like Kanye West's Yeezus , FKA Twigs' LP1  and Bojrk's Vulnicura  and Utopia . She has released 3 prior studio albums to increasing critical success and has grown massively in name recognition in the three years since her last record. Review By Lavender: Despite the fact that I have never quite been blown away by an Arca solo project I have been in love with her production credits for quite a long time. Both the immense creativity and willingness to innovate and experiment made Arca an enigmatic figure in the music world, with her mysterious persona adding even more intrigue to the mix. But much like SOPHIE before her Arca has had a major coming out moment in the 3 years since her last record. Not only publicly identifying as non-binary but also lending her face and body to numerous music videos and pieces of promotional material for the first time. Combining this with an incr...