LAVURN is the debut self-titled album from Lavurn Lee, a singer, songwriter, producer, performer and DJ from the inner suburbs of Toronto. He has also lived and worked in Sydney, Hong Kong and Berlin. His music is an emotionally complex assemblage of processed vocals, filtered pads, surgically programmed drums, haunting melodic fragments and hazy textures. This 13 track album of sparse, emotive and experimental R&B is his second for SUMAC and his first under his own name, following a previous record under the name Fake in 2018. Lavurn was made over three years between Toronto, Berlin and Hong Kong in close dialogue with SUMAC founders DJ Plead and T.Morimoto.

Previously, as Cassius Select, he has established himself as a unique voice in dance music, releasing on cult labels such as Unknown to the Unknown, Accidental Jnr, Hypercolour, Banoffee Pies, Raw Basics and Bruk Records. His side projects include collaborations with vocalists such as VV Pete and Daemon, his previous experimental R&B aliases Guerre and Fake, and BV (alongside Marcus Whale and DJ Plead).


THOUGHTS & REFLECTIONS ON THE MAKING OF LAVURN

“I’m trying to make pop music. Not in the industry sense, but in the way that everyone is making their own type of pop music. It wants to be listenable, so it can create emotions. I come from bedroom song writing in the age of the internet. The lyrical content and sounds reflect my demeanor. Big ego with low sense of self-worth. Constantly posturing. At once both strong and weak. I don’t always trust my abilities. I don’t have the voice to produce contemporary radio R&B. I don’t do traditional harmonies, mine are all over the place.

It's the first time I'm writing about my own life in a literal sense. I spent years writing love songs having never been in a relationship. Whereas this feels very raw as a reflection of my experiences. To me the album sounds insular because it was made that way, in isolation. The vocals are used in a sampled way. A chorus for one track might be chopped and turned into another hook. A verse for one song is half timed and used for the chorus of another. Auto-Tune is used heavily. Some tracks are ‘written’ by pulling different beats, textures and vocals from different tracks and seeing what fits together. I tried to take self-sampling further and further. I was thinking of ways to world-build.

Most of the lyrical content on the album is about dealing with a breakup. But the album doesn’t reflect a break-up because it’s completely one sided. It doesn’t reflect the reality that I was an awful person during the relationship. Really it's an inward study of a reaction to rejection. It’s ambivalent. The attitude is “hey imma do me and improve myself”, while also desperately wanting someone back (for all the wrong reasons). There’s a veneer of self-improvement and healing. But it’s all performance. I used to think all the songs had a kind of toxic intent because of this. Trying to impress someone in a way that would make them want to return to you. In retrospect I understand the songs differently. They’re not perfect. A bit confused in their vulnerability. Maybe quite sweet in a way. I think it’s healthy for me to see the lyrics on the album as directed at myself. It’s an album about self-love. I learnt that making music can be a kind of self-care.”