Le Pie

I love it when a plan comes together. I'd been meaning to write about the Sydney 'burbs of Newtown indie-popster Le Pie ever since one of my random trawls of Bandcamp last year led me to discover her debut EP "and he said honey, you look so fine." And now that it's 2016, and Le Pie is back with a brand new song, "Up all night", what better excuse than to metaphorically kill two birds with one stone?

To be honest I don't really know that much about the artist known as Le Pie, save that after spending her (obviously not misspent) youth both drumming and fronting various local punk bands, she started writing and recording as a solo artist, beginning to explore the textures and melodies inspired by all those wonderful Sixties girl groups - and yes I'm paraphrasing her bio since even from my LA perch, Oz is still a bloody long way away...)

But after about 30 seconds of the EP's opener "Secrets", I was already hooked and mainlining on the most haunting of multi-tracked and harmonious vocals that were all wrapped in the most sublime sixties-pop melody. So much so that my mind was scrabbling to recall The Shangri-Las, The Ronettes, Darlene Love and just about every iconic female vocalist of my formative musical years. "Secrets" packs a sound that hooks you from the off, a chorus that I guarantee will loop continuously in your head and a composition that could have been crafted by the alumni of New York's Brill Building. With the entire package all topped-off by a Phil Spector production number, it's obvious that Le Pie has mined this rich musical seam expertly.



"Come over here" is another song that threatens to transport you back to a time where everything was gloriously mono and revolved at 45 rpm. It's the most perfect slice of melancholy-tinged pop, one that again tackles the rocky and never smooth road of romance. Longingly and loveably haunting, wracked with self-doubt - forever fighting that feeling of becoming trapped - it's another insight into the fraught world of modern relationships. And it's this fear that surfaces again on "I do not believe." It's achingly sad - the lyrics conveying the inner turmoil and a seemingly insurmountable barrier that can't be scaled in the forlorn pursuit of happiness. All the while the song unfurls via plaintive and reverbed guitar. It's frighteningly well constructed, belying Le Pie's tender years. 

But it's not all melancholic dark-pop sadness. "Animal friends" - in the eyes of many Australian reviewers, the EP's stand-out track - is a hopelessly romantic number that plays out as the soundtrack to a sepia-tinted and grainy 8mm home-movie. It's absolutely gorgeous, and probably contains the EP's most heartwarming lyrics; "...I’ll buy you a dog, you could get me a pony, so when we have fights we won’t have to be lonely..." Meanwhile "Josephine" is a another prime cut of faultlessly romantic pop and one that is both charming and ever so whimsical -yet never annoyingly so - ("...The French, they're all so Frenchy, But they've never been to France...") The Josephine of this song's title is clever, insatiable, indiscrete and possibly untouchable... that is until she meets her Napoleon. The rest - as they say - is history. Both "Animal friends" and "Josephine" are prime examples of  how Le Pie's honey-dripped vocals are perfectly matched to delicately crafted melodies which capture the timeless allure of the first fleeting flight of romance.



The EP closes with the hidden - bonus - track "When we talk" and one that marks a distinct change in musical direction from the dreamy, Sixties inspired pop that has proceeded it. Grungier, and with haunting synths, the song opens and closes to a haunting glockenspiel that resonates in much the same way as the chimes of the pocket watch in Ennio Morricone's score in "For A Few Dollars More." This is a track that that doesn't so much slow-burn as positively smoulder and has once again left me wondering why I didn't include this EP on my '2015 retrospective.' 



Checking out reviews from her native Oz, it appears that last year's EP drew favourable comparisons to both Best Coast and early Dum Dum Girls. And while I can see where at times Le Pie appears to be channeling her inner Bethany Cosentino (take a listen to the hooks from some of the more introspective numbers on Best Coast's "Fade Away" to hear what I mean), Le Pie's "and he said honey, you look so fine" offers a far more textured and layered affair than either of Dum Dum Girls' first two albums - keeping for the most part both feet firmly in step with the dreamy, if melancholic, soulful pop melodies that have inspired her. However, similar to Kristin Welchez (aka Dee Dee Penny or her new alter-ego Kristin Kontrol), Le Pie is a keen student of Sixties pop-culture (there's an interview in Aussie blog Tone Deaf where she discusses the links between Sixties and Punk-era music) and anyone who is a fan of PP Arnold's version of "The first cut is the deepest" will forever have my everlasting admiration...

But what truly stands out is the fact that for all those echoes of the sixties, "and he said honey, you look so fine" isn't just a copy of the timeless pop of that era. While the songs sounds oh-so reassuringly familiar - and as reviews have commented, there's just the right amount of "Oohs", "Ahhhs" and "Whoa-ohs" to confirm that air of authenticity -  it's the way Le Pie has thrown Lo-Fi fuzziness into the mix, those introverted lyrics that address her self-doubts surrounding love and life, but most of all how she has taken the genre and given it such a thoroughly modern twist.

It's when you listen to Le Pie's new single "Up all night" that the significance "When we talk" becomes apparent. While not totally eschewing those Sixties sentiments - there's still plenty of "Whoa-ohs" and "Oohs" - "Up all night" comes roaring straight at you with a burst of post-punk power-pop that shares many of the aspirations of those Mid-West torch-bearers of contemporary indie-pop Leggy and Varsity. Packed with guitar hooks and tumbling riffs aplenty, a nice line in disarming lyrics ("... I don't want to be up-tight, but you bought a fist to a word fight...") and a healthy distrust of the opposite sex, the song offers another vignette of a Le Pie's sometimes dysfunctional outlook on love and life.



But let's not say goodbye to those languid Sixties sounds just yet. I'll just leave with the sound of Le Pie taking a slice of classic Nineties disco, giving it the full dreamy Brill Building treatment (all that it lacks is a full blown string section) and turning it into a roller-coaster of emotions that teeters on the edge heartbreak...



In other words, simply stunning...

Last year was a pretty good year for Le Pie. Hopefully this year will see her consolidate those successes Down Under and see her make in-roads amongst the more disconcerting musical aficionados across the globe. The fact that you can pick-up her entire back catalogue through her Bandcamp site for about the price of two fair dinkum flat whites from any half-decent Sydney Café (sorry Starbucks and Gloria Jean's - that doesn't include you) should help.

In an interview last year Le Pie mentions tying her hand here in The States. With LA on a direct flight-path from Sydney, here's hoping!

Le Pie (Website)
Le Pie (Bandcamp)