As I’m writing this review, playing both the Dead Space remake and Gotham Knights again on my XBOX Series S, there was a strange breeze coming over the horizon as it has landed on my lap at the right place, at the right time. The thing is, here’s something that’ll take the folky atmospheres to a whole new direction by walking all parts of life.
Her name is Littleuniverses, a Montreal, Quebec-based artist, inspired by her work as she connects listeners to make art a special form of understanding the necessity between that and her music. The reason why she picked that name is to create these parallel doors for listeners to go inside and witness an amount of mysterious stories, coming to life.
It can be dark, eerie, mysterious, ambient, and poetic. But Littleuniverses can take you to a whole new world that is beyond your wildest dreams. In an interview that she did last year with the Independent Music Magazine Illustrate on November 29th, she was asked on how she would usually start and go about shaping ideas into a completed song.
“I sometimes get a strange lurking feeling when I’m about to write something that I feel is significant to me.” She said, “Like a feeling of unrest until it all pours out. I like to experience things, feelings, and to question what is happening internally.”
For her sole self-titled debut album, she has this gift which is unbelievable. She’s like a filmmaker in her own mind, creating this beautiful and ominous motion picture brought to life on the silver screen. The ‘Ghost Riders in the Sky’-sque intro on ‘Magic’ paints this mysterious spaghetti western texture that has a Morricone flavor to the echoing calls of the spiritual guidance’s waiting for you to be a part of the journey.
With its native American drum cycling waltz, ‘Woman’ evokes the carousel dance turned into a dooming guitar chord change, resembling the midsection of Peter Hammill’s composition ‘Modern’ from his 1974 gem, The Silent Corner and the Empty Stage. Then, it’s a futuristic new wave approach of electro-drum beats, Wurlitzer’s, and shrieking synths for the ‘Bird In Your Hat’ while ‘Forever to Never Again’ is an accordion-beatle jangling walk into 1950s Paris set in a Black-and-White form, directed by Louis Malle.
Then, Littleuniverses brings out the Mellotron sung in its melodic form, featuring these crossover combinations between Philip Glass and iamthemorning on ‘Will I Be a Mother?” before taking a break after the first five tracks as she goes to the chord organ, detailing the childhood innocence by watching the ‘Snowflakes’ happening.
And then, she revs up her engines on her motorcycle by returning not only to the post-punk and post-rock territory, but with a doom metal approach. Which is unexpected, but it works like a glove as she drives off into the night with a ‘Sword’ in her hand, set in The Crow universe.
Meanwhile, she gets off her bike and goes into this gospel, bossa-nova groove and dancing the Carimbo like no other on ‘Your Lake’ before ‘8’ is turned into this late ‘60s combination from the Berlin school of music. Between Klaus Schulze and the Syd Barrett-era of Pink Floyd, set in this Kraftwerk universe from the Autobahn years. The closing track returns home to Earth, and going to the acoustic crisp of a lukewarm sunrise, coming over the horizon to ‘Send It Away’.
You can hear elements of Nikka Costa written all over this beautiful arrangement as Littleuniverses delivers a tragic form of this song, witnessing the character giving the lat rite before succumbing to his deadly disease at the very end of the album. Beautiful stuff that is worth checking out and dive into the waters to explore this incredible artist by walking into her comfort zone.
