A new EP by Erin LeCount and safe to say: to ache is to be alive! As an incredible singer/songwriter and producer she presents her artistry and aesthetic to the world as being a mystical and fairy-like world. For this EP in particular, the angel wings are a huge staple to this and she also uses them often on TikTok, making her mark on her own style and how that matches with her music. This originality within her artistry and in her aesthetic is so important to music nowadays, as well as it all being so authentically her.

Starting this EP off strong with a new song, the title track, she explores layered vocals, almost with a synth background in production. This transitions into her smooth, strong vocals but keeping that unique production that I love, that feels quite angelic. This song explores to me herself not understanding how to feel whilst dealing with as she said ‘big feelings’, after going through a tumultuous journey. However, it ends with the repeated ‘to ache is to be alive’ and ending with ‘and for the first time, to ache is to be alive’. This with the built up production makes it clear that she is understanding her feelings on a deeper level. To me, it feels like a introduction to her life and sets up the rest of the EP well as a story, or almost circles back to that meaning of ‘to ache is to be alive’ by the end of the work.

This is followed by ‘Marble Arch’, with that same synth production at the start. There is clear connotations to the church, to life and death and the angelic, mystical world within this production and throughout the track. This is shown through the lyrics also such as ,’I’m a statue you can pray to’ and ‘when I came back from the dead’. As the song goes further, it expresses how she is scared for someone to come into her world and her home (being herself) and it will be a new version of herself, “This body used to be my home, now it;s just a homage’, and ‘But I’m scared if I learn to be happy, I’ll forget how to write songs’. She has shown her love in her own art form but realised she had been feeling that for so long that her art form will change, and is thinking that she is hard to love. By the end of the song there is the repeated lyric of ‘I don’t wanna be cold anymore’, interpreting it to be that she is open to a new life aspect either within her art or her persona or her relationship with people.

photo credit: Samuel Ibram

The next track is ‘Sweet Fruit’. There is this different repeated beat at the start of the production, as she symbolises herself being a ‘sweet fruit’. There is strong symbolism throughout the whole EP, which I really love about her work. ‘You shine and I crawl through the windowsill’, explains how a fruit needs the sun to grow but also Erin is looking for the same in someone. As she also repeats, ‘I need a priest, a gardener, a doctor…I need someone’. Erin feels naturally alone as she leaves someone else, so is looking for anyone for the validation into herself and her feelings. The symbolism circles back round to the lyric, ‘to rip out the weeds growing where my heart was’. The ending section of production just continues to build with her angelic vocals, something so special about her work as she produced the entire EP.

‘GodSpeed’, transitions beautifully next – keeping that production heightened still – almost hearing chimes throughout this track. This record has a little upbeat tempo to it, in comparison to the previous tracks. The symbolism of church and faith comes back around, as she wishes for that new girl in the relationship to be okay and becomes more healed but knows that she will be in that persons’ life in some form through her art. ‘Godspeed, to the girl after me, she’s young and she’s sweet, I want to tell her one thing, abandon faith in everything you believe’. Then drops into a lower tone in her voice, and an almost darker production. This envisions her to still have these last, haunting feelings, even if she is fine on the surface – because she was still hurt.

This transitions well into the last track, ‘Silver Spoon’, that has become extremely popular to her audience. Now she starts the track, ‘I’m watching her from afar’, which picks up well from the last song – she is still is thinking about this past relationship from almost afar. This then goes on a journey of how she interprets their childhood and growing up experience to be, as she earlier explored her own journey in that way. This associates well on the concept of guardian angels, or foreseeing your past. ‘And I bet you grew up eating at the table, fed love from silver spoons, reasons to be grateful’, and then later sings, ‘We’re the product of love, that we do not recieve, I’ll corrupt every branch of this family tree’. This puts in a position of thinking their home life differed which may be why the relationship didn’t suffice. ‘You were kind, I was cruel. In another life, maybe I was you, and I grew up into something good, somebody who could swallow love’. Yet, she still knows how to fend for herself. There is also strong connotations to eating at the table, and circles back nicely to why the title is ‘silver spoon’ – how love is almost the fuel instead of the food. Ending lyric being,’Maybe in another life’, also circles back to the connotations of life and death, alongside love and heartbreak – with a high energy ending – her vocals abruptly stop signalling the end of that chapter.

Overall, this EP was beautifully written, showcasing her ability to write music on such a deeper level – being able to tell a story but also make it her own. She produced and wrote the entire EP, which does speak to her incredible talents. Tied in with her honest and smooth vocals, it is an incredible body of work. Definitely take your time to listen to this new record, and all of Erin LeCount’s work, as she makes her stamp on the music industry. Her artistry is on another level both in her work and her aesthetic and is definitely an artist to keep up with.

You can listen to ‘I am Digital, I am Divine’ EP below: