Cautionary Tales of Youth

By the time her second album, Through Water, saw release in March of 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic was drawing an international response, and London-based Lapsley sheltered in place far away from home in South Africa. Her next album, Cautionary Tales of Youth, was inspired by her experiences during this time of slowing down, checking in with fans on social media, making new friends, and generally appreciating the smaller things in life as well as learning a few hard life lessons. Recorded both in Cape Town and back at her base of Clapton, East London, with several producers (Jessy Lanza, Paul White, Greg Abrahams, Joe Brown), the resulting album is perhaps surprisingly uplifting and affectionate in tone. Based in a reflective, if dance-minded, bedroom-R&B zone for the most part, its opening tribute to South Africa, "32 Floors," is followed by the like-minded and intimate "Hotel Corridors," which spells it all out with the words "Im feeling good and Im hopeful/Im looking in and my souls full." Much of the rest continues in similarly warm and restrained fashion, with occasional warped vocal effects and shuffling beats conveying an off-kilter dreamy state more in line with memories than something from a late-hours club. Lapsley crosses that barrier a few times here, such as on the grooving, half-rapped "Dial Two Seven," with its forward-leaning rhythms, as well as on the bright-melodied relationship song "War and Peace" and outright trance entry "Levitate." Cautionary Tales of Youth closes, however, on the meditative "Say Im What You Need," whose echoing vocals, drowsy pace, spare, muffled accompaniment, and reassuring insistence that "Im what you always needed" seem directed at an audience of Lapsley herself. ~ Marcy Donelson