Lafawndah

<a href="spotify:artist:7jHWye55igIZ6SsF4eXKkP" data-name="Lafawndah">Lafawndah</a>&#39;s journey to her current incarnation as a devotional pop polymath has wound as unpredictably as her compositional style. <a href="spotify:album:7hfURFEt6v97pRmxTsoSHS" data-name="Ancestor Boy">Ancestor Boy</a>, released in 2019, is a record loaded with trap doors, her intricate production style married with her vocal performances that oscillate between the warm secrecy of a whisper, and a loud and generous rallying cry.
Companion piece <a href="spotify:album:7B9tU0Iw9ggPqlVGuruFdS" data-name="Ancestor Boy II">Ancestor Boy II</a> is testament to her curatorial ear - it acts as a global call for collaboration with peers at the forefront of new music.

The ceaseless artist returns this year with The Fifth Season, announced with striking single <a href="spotify:album:5luT5S0bYAsM6oSYvqFxry" data-name="You, at the End">You, at the End</a> featuring lyrics from <a href="spotify:artist:1O3wYcUD08X9yb6J3xaw5M" data-name="Kate Tempest">Kate Tempest</a>.
Inspired by her encounter with author NK Jemisin’s Broken Earth trilogy, <a href="spotify:artist:7jHWye55igIZ6SsF4eXKkP" data-name="Lafawndah">Lafawndah</a> both pays homage to and extends further the elemental, emotionally charged myths of Jemisin’s books. In contrast to the precision-tuned industrial productions of Ancestor Boy, The Fifth Season breathes a different kind of volatility. Inviting a new degree of spontaneity and freedom into her process, Lafawndah’s collaborators - <a href="spotify:artist:0IFabaHypEH0hMgkx0Gw56" data-name="Theon Cross">Theon Cross</a> (tuba), <a href="spotify:artist:31iZhDu1NFs0PVOnvzAk0t" data-name="Nathaniel Cross">Nathaniel Cross</a> (trombone), <a href="spotify:artist:0jPLDwuZUzb6qZdfi5XPHz" data-name="Valentina Magaletti">Valentina Magaletti</a> (percussion), and Nick Weiss (keyboards) - encircle her confrontational character studies with iridescent, cinematic chamber-bass moves.

The Fifth Season anchors Lafawndah as a descendent of forebearers <a href="spotify:artist:2P03Aan9wfgwkxTwGch2g1" data-name="Brigitte Fontaine">Brigitte Fontaine</a> and <a href="spotify:artist:04tBaW21jyUfeP5iqiKBVq" data-name="Scott Walker">Scott Walker</a> - a born theatric whose acid humor warps the sub-continental undertow of her emotive storytelling.