LibraLibra’s new EP CUT acts as a witness to ‘the fall from grace, loss of innocence, grief, hysteria, being proclaimed mad in the face of trauma and consequently descending into madness’. The EP presents punchy electronic, at times discoesque, rock music exhibiting unrivalled vocals and experimental sound throughout. CUT is a raw, emotionally fuelled, transcendent piece of art from one of Brighton’s most exciting bands. We asked frontwoman Beth Cannon to tell us more ...
Can you describe LibraLibra to people who aren’t familiar with the band already?
We’re emotionally fuelled, very dramatic, a bit artistic. I think we’ve got elements of pop and elements of rock and we mash it all together, with a heightened sense of drama.
What did the writing process look like for the songs on your EP?
It comes very organically; I don’t enter a writing space knowing what I’m going to say. How I write, with Guy and Joe especially, is that I’m very triggered by sound. If I hear a selection of chords, or a specific beat amalgamated together, suddenly we’ll see kind of a pathway to a whole melody. I start to realise if there’s something that I’m trying to say quite early on.
How does it feel to release something that is so authentically you, to the public?
I hope that our music can help take people to places – whether its cathartic or uplifting. It’s daunting because you don’t know how people are going to receive it. I might have an idea of what the song means to me, but I never want to say this is what the listener should feel about it. I want someone to listen to a piece of music and be transported to where they need to go and to what they want to feel. It’s very daunting but we write just because we want to do it, and it’s a privilege if people do listen to it and feel something from it.
The EP hears elements of punk, electronic, art pop, rock and some phrasing that is reminiscent of jazz and classical music. What inspires you and informs your style of music?
At school I was put into standard classical singing lessons, choirs and down a slightly more operatic route. I can appreciate opera and I love it, but I don’t click with it because of how regimented it is. I took a few years away from music when I left school because I didn’t know where my place was.
At school the boys could be in bands and the girls weren’t allowed. I had this horrible experience when I was 15 where me and my friends had to fight to enter a ‘Battle of the Bands’ style competition because we were girls, and when we eventually performed the boys turned all of our mics off. No-one took us seriously and it made me feel like I could never be in a band because I felt really embarrassed for trying. I didn’t want to do music at all because I couldn’t seem to find anywhere that I belonged. It was only when I came to Brighton, I started to meet people that made me realise I could be in a band.
Guy is just so good at all music and even taught themselves to play the cello over lockdown and has been studying loads of different kind of areas like Bach. They love song writing and composing, so we wanted to bring elements of strings into the EP.
Joe is amazing, he produces everything and has always been working in music, like an obsession. He produces and does mixing, and he can just spend hours at a desk just analysing everything for hours.
In the song SADFACE, there is a lyric about changing your looks and changing your style. How important is style is to you?
I get drawn to colours and I just love anything that sparkles. I like colours and prints and I just think it’s amazing. Fashion is developing in the sense that there’s more options if you have curves now, and I just love it.
How clear is your vision for the music video when you’re writing a song?
I can see scenes and movies and storylines transpire within the songs. I have quite strong visuals in mind of how I want the video to be, however, we don’t have much money so we often go back to the drawing board to work out what is realistic. We just see what we can get our hands on and put everything we can into it. Hopefully we’ll have a bigger budget and be able to do something more grandiose – I’m obsessed with music videos. I used to direct plays and I’d love to get into directing film as well. We bought our own camera during lockdown so over the next year we are looking to develop our videos further.
You’ve spoken before about how music and the arts have been a form of escapism. If you could be transported anywhere by a song, where would you want it to take you?
I love music that makes you cry and transports you to the darkest, most melancholic, triumphant place. I love music that can really take you down, but build you back up at the same time. When the song finishes, and you’ve banished something that was trying to get out – that’s the music that I love.
LOUD WOMEN 