On new single “Heather,” Lloyd’s House is coming out of their lo-fi cage and doing just fine. The project of Glasgow-based singer/songwriter Lloyd Ledingham started as a self-produced bedroom enterprise with the release of the We Could Be Friends EP in January 2021 and a self-titled LP in December, but they’ve emerged from the summer with a full-fledged, over-driven indie pop single that drops the heavy EQ filters like training weights. For the first time, Ledingham recorded with a producer (Chris McCrory) and a full band. They say that having the extra input was liberating.
“Enjoying yourself while recording is important, and I’ve found in the past doing things myself I can get quite hung up about certain things, and quickly get frustrated when things don’t work out how I want them to,” says Ledingham, who’s joined on “Heather” by guitarist Fin Logie, bassist Aaron Bissett, drummer Grant Robertson, and keyboard player Reece Robertson. “Having the band, who are also my best friends, took away a lot of that frustration and made it a genuinely lovely experience. I can’t thank them enough for that.”
There’s more room in the mix for synths to sparkle and guitars to fuzz out around the catchy “Oh-wah-oh” refrains, but Ledingham’s trademark alt-pop moodiness is still intact at the center of it all. “It’s probably the most cliche, emo thing to write about, but a lot of the themes in the song are wanting someone, knowing that you can’t have them, but trying anyway, because it’s the only option you have,” they say. “It's a lot of self pity, trying to find comfort in discomfort. Feeling like it’s easier to want someone that you can’t have than to move on, process it, and deal with it.”
You can stream “Heather” below ahead of Lloyd’s House’s fall UK tour, which kicks off September 1 in Dundee, Scotland.
