THE LASSES - Undone
Private Label
When you look at female harmony groups of recent times, names like First Aid Kit, The Waifs, The Staves and Wildwood Kin come to mind. While the individual musical styles differ between Americana, Anglo American folk rock and country, the sisterly harmonies are intact creating a rootlike synchronicity that cannot be denied. Now you can add The Lasses to that list.
The Lasses are a duo from Amsterdam in Holland. They began singing together at a session in Irish pub Mulligans in Amsterdam, and soon a vocal quartet emerged. Now the core duet of Sophie Janna and Margot Merah release their fourth album, Undone. The songs from their own pens mix with traditional ballads such as Bonnie George Campbell and Tipping it Up to Nancy and covers of material by Si Khan (What You Do With What You’ve Got), Sandy Denny (Who Knows Where The Time Goes?), Ola Belle Reid (Undone In Sorrow) and Natalie Merchant (Motherland). The harmony singing is strong and robust with both voices sounding suitably different yet combining to produce a harmonious sound. They enjoy what they do - that is obvious - and their own material (Hunter Moon by Margot and Here Now by Sophie) shows considerable promise. The backings are subtle and add to the mix while the vocals remain their strongest attraction, but a unified distinctive sound is in the making. Undone is both pleasurable and invigorating.
www.thelasses.nl
John O’Regan
This review appeared in Issue 131 of The Living Tradition magazine