EP Review | Sleep Talk Is Nostalgic Pop From Patricia Lalor
At the tender age of 11, Patricia Lalor started uploading cover songs to her YouTube channel. To date, she has amassed some 121K followers, with her cover of Hozier’s ‘Cherry Wine’ reaching over a million views and earning some great praise from the man himself.
Now at 14, with the release of her debut EP Sleep Talk, Patricia is one of Ireland’s fastest-rising pop stars. Her reach far exceeds her grasp, her song writing and masterful vocals equalling those of peers well beyond her years.
Sleep Talk blends soft indie pop sounds with light folk to create a bright, moving listening experience. If you can imagine a midway point between Billie Eilish and SOAK, you’ve got a pretty good idea.
The EP opens with the title track, a soft, sleepy song soaked in gorgeous harmonies. Effectively setting the tone for the EP, particularly with attention to the bedtime vibes and harmony, this is immediately followed by darker tracks ‘Words I Have To Say’ and ‘Fall Back Asleep’—each backed by spindly, skeletal guitar, Patricia’s reverb-soaked vocal, and bubbling synths. ’13th of January’ ends the EP on a sad, nostalgic note, longing for simpler times.
Patricia Lalor does a fantastic job of capturing these feelings—nostalgia, longing—in absolutely every aspect of the EP. From the overall sonic aesthetic, vocal performance, instrumentation and arrangement, to song titles and lyricism, everything is deliberate. On ‘Fall Back Asleep’ she lets some soft, slightly atonal guitar chords carry the emotional weight for a moment, while elsewhere on the EP there are vocal or synth spotlights. It’s worth mentioning too that her label takes its name from a quote from the ‘80s-set Stranger Things, a show lauded for its evocation of the look and feel of this era.
Sleep Talk is certainly a pretty little sampler. The songs are woven together through vibe, but each track offers its own subtle variation on Patricia Lalor’s core sound.
Sleep Talk is out now via Friends Don’t Lie.
