Said it once and we’ll say it again, Lillie West is on track to be our generation’s great collaborator. The artist behind Lala Lala has spent her time between her last record and this most recent release collaborating with a wide range of artists from NNAMDÏ to Grapetooth, from Porridge Radio to Baths. Honing her collaborative skills, venturing outside of her typical style, and expanding the community of artists she works with has produced a triumphant new single “DIVER” said to be the thesis track off her forthcoming record I Want The Door To Open.
The track begins with layers of different textures building to a vibrating wall of sound. The production overall is rich and varied, incorporating choral-like backing vocals, unexpected riffs, crescendos and crashes. There’s a euphoric quality to the track. While West details a variety of struggles (and we watch her deal with a physical manifestation of this in the music video) she has shared that “DIVER” and the record at large is about enjoying the journey, even when it is not an easy one.
In the music video we see West take a hammer to a massive block of ice in an attempt to retrieve keys frozen beneath the surface — an endeavor which hasn’t been seen since early 2000s reality competition shows and make a dramatic, impactful, and welcome comeback. Upon achieving her “goal” the track drops out, further hammering (sorry) home that it never was about getting the thing done, that’s the least interesting part of doing it in the first place. All the emotion, the excitement, the joy and the despair, happen in the moments of doing.
