Southern California songwriter and visual artist Leo Lauren has released his newest single “Lovesick” on Apple Music and Spotify. The song had its worldwide premiere courtesy of Zane Lowe and his Beats 1 program on Apple Music. The track is a follow-up to “Supernormal,” both of which will appear on his upcoming EP this Summer.

About the single: “Lovesick” is a sonic fever dream of desire, where Lauren plays a character ill with distance and separation. In this landscape, vision is infected by the haze of far off sunsets and candy-colored skies, and doing anything is a battle with vertigo. Lauren characterizes the atmosphere of the song as “Paradise Goth,” arranging bright exotic xylophone lines, sandy percussive acoustic guitars, and fantastically melancholy pan flutes around a yearning, tortured vocal. 

He portrays the precariousness of love sickness, the physical and psychological instability of being torn apart by a heart beating in two places at once: the body of the obsessed and the estranged place of the desired. In “Lovesick,” this bilocation sets the stage for Lauren’s drama, with a chorus that is not just concerned with the experience of love but the performance of it. 

As Lauren puts it, a “demonstration of love.” Like his previous single “Supernormal,” “Lovesick” invites the listener to move. While it is a lamentation, it is also a catharsis, the emotional content of the lyric greatly informed by the multi-dimensional rhythm which accompanies it. In Lauren’s songwriting and arranging lies the optimism that to dance, shake, and flail about is a chance for relief; a degree of purge; a way in which isolation and angst can be celebrated and somehow made a little easier.

“Lovesick” is only Lauren’s second single, though he is no stranger to songwriting, and has carefully crafted a distinct sonic and visual style. 

As an artist who works in painting, drawing, sculpture, writing, video production, and hand-stitched garbs, Lauren further stands out from other creatives with his generationally fluid style and mixed-media arts practice – all which inform the nuanced songwriting, lyricism, and performance of “Lovesick” and “Supernormal.” His music tastefully synthesizes  pop, funk, goth, soul, heavy metal, and alternative rock to form his own unique and dynamic sound. 

In late 2018 Leo Lauren entered the studio with producer/guitarist Heather Baker (NoMBe, Bea Miller, Adam Lambert) and began production on multiple songs including “Supernormal” and “Lovesick” for his upcoming EP. Baker and Lauren also recruited noted My Chemical Romance drummer Jarrod Alexander (known as Machine-Gun-Jarrod for his rapid fire, punchy playing) for the effort. The single and forthcoming EP was mixed by Grammy award-winning engineer Nathan Jenkins. A music video is currently in the works for “Supernormal,” with Lauren building an entire sci-fi set in his studio, designing a Hellraiser-esque alien bondage uniform, and producing other pieces of art as part of the project. 

Leo Lauren on Instagram – @1leo1auren

Leo Lauren on Twitter – @1leo1auren