Little Scream: Disco Ball
This advance cut from the acclaimed Montreal artist's new album features lush and layered production, bubbly pop vocals, and lyrics that merge personal reflection and social commentary.
By Kerry Doole
Little Scream: Disco Ball (Merge/Dine Alone): Montreal’s Little Scream (Laurel Sprenglemeyer) is a highly-touted electro-pop artist readying the release of a new album, Speed Queen, on Oct. 25
Disco Ball is the third advance track from the record. In a label press release, she explains that "Disco Ball is one of the songs that was born musically on the country road after I bought the Flying V guitar. It incorporates many of the observations from being on the road with the last album, feeling a sense of recognition in the down-and-outness of the places we visited. Identifying with that sense of having been duped for following your dreams in every closed shop window we passed.
"Thinking about how that book The Secret must be responsible for a countable percentage of the subprime mortgage crisis. Thinking about struggling as a musician, but having that be the thing that allows me to make a disco ball out of all the smashed mirrors of my past. Taking all of this and thinking about how to make an anthem of hope for times when you feel you have nothing.”
The song features lush and layered production, while her voice has a bubbly pop feel here. Lyrically, it cleverly merges personal reflection and social commentary - as on lyrics like "And I see the luck drying up wherever I go, Vacant windows, foreclosed homes, I may be lost but I am not alone."
Sprengelmeyer has been playing music under the moniker Little Scream since 2008 and has released two earlier albums, The Golden Record and Cult Following. Little Scream has stayed busy as a member of Richard Reed Parry’s Quiet River of Dust, touring with and co-writing songs from the albums Vol. 1: This Side of the River and Vol. 2: That Side of the River. She has appeared as a vocalist and guitarist on recordings for The National, The Barr Brothers, Will Butler, and Saltland, among others.
Links
Publicity: Ken Beattie, Killbeat
