New Zealand-based indie-folk duo Lhasa present audiences with a gorgeously warming performance with their recent “Birdsong EP”. The title track “Birdsong” is a song that feels like a long-lost classic. It’s a really well written, poetic and reflective piece, that has been performed here to a flawless level and in a manner that expresses the underlying sentiments of the song in a beautiful way.
Samuel and Micaela met at music school and began writing songs together in 2017. They have a certain interconnectedness when they perform, you can hear how smoothly everything moves along together, rising in intensity and passion gradually before settling back down. “Birdsong” feels like waves moving up and down at the shore. Everything from the acoustic guitar strum to the leading voice feels like an irreplaceable and crucial part of the process. The lyrics and the rising melody really carry you with them as they emerge. The song becomes this go-to moment of reflective thinking, getting you involved during those verses, then resolving just perfectly at the hook to leave you lost in the music in a mighty way. This live performance has been incredibly well captured by Lhasa. Definitely worth checking up the “Birdsong EP” in full!
Listen to “Birdsong” here and read more with the duo of Lhasa in our interview below!
Welcome to BuzzMusic Lhasa! How many releases have you done as a duo? How did this collaboration come to fruition?
The Birdsong EP is our first release as a duo, so just one so far but we plan on releasing more in the near future. We first met at music school in 2016 when Samuel had just moved to New Zealand from China and started collaborating and writing together about a year after that. "Birdsong" was actually the first song we ended up writing together and the rest of the EP just flowed quite easily after that. It's hard to explain when things just fall into place, but it just feels right that we're doing music together and we think that shows in our songs too.
What was the overall concept of “Birdsong EP”? Do you believe that the way you intend to communicate your messages through your music is easily received by your listeners?
The EP doesn't have a specific concept behind it, but it's birthed out of the idea that we both want to create music that means something to us (and hopefully to other people too). Music is something that has affected our lives immensely and we would love to try and give that impact back to people who listen to us. Because of this, we hope that people really connect with the things we sing about and the emotions behind them.
“Birdsong" is surging with articulate emotions. What kind of feelings did you want listeners to be washed over with when listening to the song?
We really love that multiple people can hear the same song and pick out completely different emotions from it. For us, the song really speaks of hope. We've heard from some fans that it makes them feel joyful, and for some, they pick out a longing feeling. It's really down to the individual and where they're at.
How would you say your music now compares to the music you curated when you first started out in the music industry?
Over time we have both grown in our songwriting, which is only natural. The more you work at your craft, the better it gets. We look back at certain songs we both individually wrote a few years back and some of them feel quite disjointed and underdeveloped. The music we create also seems to evolve and grow with us as people, and so as we get older, our music matures with us. The music that we both write individually is also very different from our Lhasa sound, which we think is quite cool. Lhasa is really the combination of us as people and turns it into something audible.
Thanks for coming on BuzzMusic to talk about “Birdsong" and yourselves as artists! What's the next big thing for you artistically?
We're currently planning a tour for January 2020 and we're also in the process of writing more music. We'll start recording that pretty soon and hope to release something next year. Thanks for having us!
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