by Philip Moss

No matter how hard you squint, the line on the horizon where folk and country music meet remains a blur. And if you look ‘into the centre of the sun’ as Le Ren aka Lauren Spear does on new single, Dyan, the distinction won’t become any clearer – just as it doesn’t throughout the first taster lifted from her upcoming debut album, Leftovers.

There have been other nuggets from the Montreal songwriter that have whet the appetite for her first long player – a Sub Pop released double A side, last year’s four track Morning & Melancholia EP, and the cover of Gordon Lightfoot’s Early Morning Rain that featured Buck Meek from February. But Dyan feels like a step up. Timeless. A self portrait splashed with Spear’s deep, rich melody, which gently two steps above her Leonard Cohen alike guitar picks. She sings a gentle ode to the space that has grown between her and her mother – a feeling emphasised by the pandemic – and the everyday triggers that crop up to remind her of the importance of familial love.

Leftovers is out on Secretly Canadian on 15th October.

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