Lace’s new EP “Liar’s Notebook”

“Liar liar, who you think you’re hiding from? / Liar liar, there’s nowhere for you to run,” we’re told in the opening lines of “Liar Liar,” the first track in Lace’s new record Liar’s Notebook, currently out everywhere quality indie music is sold and streamed this fall. While songs like this one are lyrical gems in every sense – and, on occasion, feel like pointed statements directed squarely at the R&B establishment – they’re not required listening because of their savvy poeticisms exclusively. In Liar’s Notebook, Lace are using every tool at their disposal in an effort to put their own stamp on the neo-soul game, and from where I sit, they scored a slam dunk with this debut effort.

URL: https://www.laceplays.com/

In “Lima (ft. Alina Sarna)” and “Remember,” the guitar is the sole provocateur of the story, telling us tall tales with its slick string play in a fashion I don’t think any vocalist would have been able to keep up with on their own. Lace have a lot of fun switching between ambient soundscapes and lyrically-driven soul reflections in Liar’s Notebook, and although the two aesthetics are married more often than not, they’re presented with enough duality to lend a multilayered feel to every song here.

The percussion is truly elemental to the mood in “Bird,” the second song to feature Emi Desire on this record (the first being the aforementioned “Liar Liar”), but it’s never an overstated component in any of the compositions in the tracklist. The grooves are straight out of a South Indian convention, but their jazziness flows into the soul bend in the vocal and lyrics better than could be expected when simply analyzing the formula on paper. Liar’s Notebook is experimental where and when it counts, and for me, that’s all that I really ask of any alternative music in 2020.

Nothing is ever strong enough to steal any of the attention away from the vocal/guitar relationship in songs like “Remember,” “Bird” and “Liar Liar,” but my gut tells me this might not be the case in a live performance of the same material. Everything here is flexible enough to suggest some wicked potential for stage jamming, and although it might be a bit longer before we collectively have the chance to hear this collaborative play together before a real crowd, a debut EP like this one is definitely going to get the buzz raging as powerfully as a California wildfire.

BANDCAMP: https://laceplays.bandcamp.com/album/liars-notebook

If what I’ve just listened to in Liar’s Notebook is on par with what Lace have in the tank for their first LP, I’m going to go out of my way to get ahold of that album when it comes to fruition in the future. There’s still so much to be explored in this group’s sound, so many collaborations left to be experimented with, but based on the ambitiousness of this rookie release, it’s probably safe to say this won’t be the last we hear and see of Lace. They’ve got my endorsement, and soon enough, likely that of the soul underground in general.

Samuel Pratt