Laura Reznek has never liked to talk about herself. If you listen closely to her music, however, you’ll hear murmurs of naked disclosure — fragments of grief, anger, and complicated joy riddled through her melodies. In her new micro EP Leap Year (Birthday Cake Records), Laura wrestles with time during which everything and nothing happens, and the betrayal of boredom in the midst of life-changing loss. Laura layers meticulous arrangements with found sounds, crafting plush sonic textures that occasionally bristle with something darker.
Released as an experimental standalone between two major projects, Laura’s “Time In The World” has the character of an interlude. Starting life as a self-soothing lullaby in times of anxiety, that original melody developed into an apocalyptic soundscape with elements of trip hop, industrial rock, and electronica. The song speaks to the anxieties of a generation too: it’s released alongside Pippa Johnstone’s acclaimed six part audio series, Expectant, (listed as one of the best new podcasts of the year by CBC, Apple Podcasts (Canada), and Amazon Music (Canada) which deals with the climate crisis and intergenerational trauma.
Laura explains, “There aren’t very many lyrics in this song, but I wanted to have some sense of comfort in what is otherwise a bleak song, by imagining my own mother telling me to relax so [the lyric] ‘I’ve been soothing myself the way that she used to, so now and again I find myself saying ‘all the time in the world’ helped me kind of tie it together.”