Singer/songwriter Maude Latour is infatuated with metaphysics, modern-day politics, and the layered facets of spirituality. The paradigms established in these topics seamlessly carry over into the 20-year-old’s songwriting and fizzy, space pop soundscape. Her songs are shot through a canon, across the stars and galaxies above, landing somewhere between the cosmic landscapes of alt, electro, and indie pop.
Today, Maude shares “Lovesick,” the new single from her Starsick EP, also out today. The final track off her EP is an exploration of the anguish and physical wear and tear related to heartache. Latour’s self-assured vocals, lyricism inspired by ancient Greek poetry, and her elegant yet unconventional structure makes “Lovesick” her boldest effort to date.
In Maude’s own words: “‘Lovesick’ makes me cry for a lot of reasons. I learned about lovesickness from a college class. We read so many texts like Sappho, or Virgil’s Aeneid where love is treated like a disease. It used to be diagnosed by doctors. The thing is, lovesickness truly is so physical and all consuming. It affects my immune system, my clarity and the way I’m operating. It’s insane how powerful heartache is, it is the stuff of life. This song is about these feelings; acknowledging their power, letting it go and being grateful for how lucky we are to feel any sort of connection between people despite how much space there is in the world. The chorus here is truly a choir. I was feeling so fed up with hooks and song structure and insisted on writing a choir of different parts overlapping to make an angelic symphony. This is ‘Lovesick.’”
The single is accompanied by a music video directed and filmed by Fergus Campbell. The visuals, a cross between digital and Super 8mm film style footage, were shot between Paris and New York City with Maude and her friends. Maude shares this, “Half of this video is filmed while I was visiting my then boyfriend in Paris. We spent an incredible time together, and we had a wonderful relationship. The other half of the video is filmed after we broke up, in the beginning of winter in New York City. This song is about this relationship, learning to appreciate the beauty that it was while it lasted, and learning to be okay with lovesickness. I can barely watch the video, it brings me to tears every time I see it. It’s filled with the story of this very significant time in my life.”
The EP begins with the title track, “Starsick.” The infectious technicolor pop song produced by Alexander 23filters whimsical chiptune inflections, silky vocal harmonies, and an indelible groove through a vibrant effervescence. Maude’s first single of 2019 was “Superfruit.” The summery anthem is an exceedingly catchy and polished pop endeavor that gleams right from the very start. The contemplative track has Maude facing the fear of death and loneliness head-on while managing to offer up blissful pop productions. In “Plans,” Maude trills animatedly over an ethereal soundscape, mid-tempo clunking drums, and phantasmagoric digital flourishes. Her vibrant DIY aesthetic is at once playfully nostalgic and brilliantly forward-thinking.
The EP also features her 2018 hit single “Shoot and Run,” that’s brimming with striking melodies, pristine synth-pop inflections, and Maude’s velvety vocals. The teenage love anthem copes with the personal tussles of repairing a relationship that appears to have gone awry somewhere along the way.
“Ride My Bike” finds Maude crooning through vocal harmonies and lilting melodies. The EP culminates with the latest single, “Lovesick.” The cosmic pop sounding Starsick is a 6-track EP examining the transcendences of life, the linkage between universe and God, and the profound love for Maude’s best friend.
Maude shares of her new EP: “This EP is my world. I can’t believe it’s real. It is the voice of the world I’ve always had a vision for. A world where people tell their crushes how much they’re in love, where we feel the highest highs and lowest lows and realize both these extremes are the stuff of life, where we openly try to reach the sublime and listen for God and the universe. I know this all sounds crazy, but it’s a revolution I’ve been building towards for my entire life and the wildest part is that people are starting to understand it. This past year so many have found these songs and confessed they feel all of this too. This is a declaration of being done with small talk and not dating people who treat you poorly, being unabashedly afraid of the transcendence of life, and trying to squeeze any ounce of meaning out of this world, all while being grateful we are in it. All of these songs come together to paint this picture. The continuity running through these songs are there if you’re listening closely. I’m so proud of this work, I’m so excited for it to be in the world.”