The new single “We Must Be In Love” from Lea Thomas has been the best seven minutes of my day, several times over. It’s meditative, soothing and I didn’t want it to end:

I think I’ve played this half a dozen times today. It’s gorgeous and tranquil. I can’t get enough.

I’d never heard Lea’s music before. She’s been releasing original music since 2017, and this is the second single of 2024 from her, in the lead-up to the record Cosmos Forever on September 20. The other single, “The Gift”, came out in July, and it’s half the length, twice the lyrics, but the same hypnotic, peaceful feel:

The songs don’t conform to a typical structure – they have more in common with ambient EDM recordings than with other pop songs. There’s a sense of being one with nature that’s present in the lyrics, the composition and even the music videos. From the press for the album:

For the recording, Thomas, her co-producer John Thayer (YAI, Ezra Feinberg, Arp), and three other bandmates traveled to a house at the end of a mountain road in the woods. There, in a hushed landscape, they discovered a peaceful respite over the course of about a week, during which something benevolent and clear-eyed had enough time to be born. 

She’s from Hawaii, based in New York, and has a pretty broad musical range in her catalog. Heard from the beginning, her discography sounds like an artist developing her own character and personality over time – from the near-Americana sounds on 2017’s Want for Nothing, to 2019’s ambient-folk Blue of Distance, filled with nature sounds and reverb.

Her last album, Mirrors to the Sun, was released in 2021. It has a fairly straightforward structure, though the lyrics are filled with metaphors and references to the natural world, themes of love, beauty, dreams and forgiveness. It has a more familiar singer/songwriter sound to it as well.

Here’s “Howl”, from that record:

The two new singles sound like they’re combining the ideas and themes from the prior two albums. The press for this album teases a lot more along the lines of these two songs, calling the record “…an album that shines on its own, warmly rewarding deeper and repeated listening with a sense of tranquility and gentle assurance”. Can’t wait to hear it.

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