Next Wave #618: Liv

Sassy and bassy sounds from London…

“Oh my God.”

Liv has jerked to life like a coat catching wind. “Beyoncé.” She savours the word, rolling it out slowly like a mantra. Tasting each syllable. Be… yon… cé… You can feel her blush over the phone. “She is just so amazing, like in everything she does.”

Liv, rising queen of cool, creator of tracks that come on like Jessie Ware trapped in an inferno of sass, is having a fan girl moment. At 21 (“just”) and with a career spanning five years, including a stint as a member of the since-disbanded SoundGirl, Liv speaks with an endearing mix of supreme confidence and youthful goofiness.

Liv’s girl group past has given her the tools, and the drive, to carve out the niche she occupies today. “When it doesn’t work out,” she confides, “and you realise that you still want to be making music, you take it a lot more seriously.”

The gushing, Destiny’s Child-loving Liv is in the backseat now. “I’ve been developing on my own for the last two years,” she goes on, “and I’ve really had a chance to find myself, and to know exactly what I want and the kind of music I want to do.”

‘Come A Little Closer’, her first single, and the first fruit from these years of soul searching, is responsible for the buzz that surrounds the project. Drawing comparisons to AlunaGeorge and M.I.A. – but not sounding entirely like either – it’s a three-minute explosion of crooned vocals and ‘come hither’ bass, a sweaty mess of spongy melody and carefully rationed restraint. “Sassy and sexy and strong”. The sort of track that inspires full-bodied freak-outs on public transport. A dangerous beast.

With live shows pencilled in for the 2015, Liv’s ready to try on her new aesthetic. She’s flustered and flawless and, with her first two tracks picking up steam, on the brink of something big.

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WHAT: Sassy and bassy

WHERE: London

GET SONGS: ‘Special’, ‘Come A Little Closer’ (above), ‘Do You Love Me’

FACT: During a tour with SoundGirl, Justin Bieber invaded the band’s dressing room with an Airzooka. It was “quite funny”, actually.

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Words: Rob Knaggs
Photo: Anna Victoria Best

Liv online

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