Lila Rose had an EP out before her smashing debut album hit our ears earlier this year. “Osmos Your Sonica” is an interesting starting point for the artist and you can hear the origins of her album “Heart Machine” clearly.
“Magick” opens up with a grizzly pop song with lots of mbira and xylophones giving the main melody over heavy bass dubs. It then breaks down into a rap in the middle which is strange hearing now from the album backwards but it fits well into the song and the vocal layering is superb. “My Mind” is more acoustic driven with its melodies. Acoustic guitars and vocal montages pull the main melody forward with echoing spacious electric guitar harmonics giving the background. It’s a beautiful swirl of mystery.
“Warrior” then pushes things over towards drum n bass and big beats. There’s minimal main tune here with lots of percussion and bass notes underlying duelling vocal deliveries. Its dirty, primitive (for DnB) and very different to anything else Lila has done since. An acquired taste perhaps but I actually really enjoyed the vocal free-flowing. Closer “Dark Cloud” is an epic six-minute track with minimalist guitar plucking and Lila really going for it vocally. There’s also some beat boxing in places although I’m not sure it all entirely fits together. There’s a secret track at the end of the MP3 which is a real dark bass pop track. It’s like a filthy Britney /Christina track. There’s a real pulsing pop grind to it and it works very well but on a personal note I prefer the music style Lila Rose has gone with since.
Osmos Your Sonica is a great example of a clearly very talented artist trying out different styles almost to showcase and choose her craft from here on in. It’s interesting to note that her final sound ends up being a merge of a lot of this EP and so fans of Heart Machine should enjoy this too.