LissA

The word ‘organic’ best describes LissA’s approach and ascent. Refusing to be pinned down to any one single genre and juggling her studies with a burgeoning music career, she makes for an incredibly impressive force on paper. It’s her stunning voice and sophisticated songcraft that really makes her stand out, though — something backed up by the 80 million Spotify streams she has amassed in three years since her debut release. She isn’t rigidly stuck to one sound. Instead she pursues a multitude of different flavors that express the full range of her musical tastes. You’re just as likely to hear her release one of her downtempo, beautifully fragile singles like Zimt or haunting atmospheric numbers like Some of Me as you are to hear her collaborate with a world-famous dance music producer. She writes all her songs on her guitar, these creations later finding their best-fitting style and context without too much force. Her hook-ups with Filous (Feel Good Inc.) and The Him (I Wonder) have shown her diverse nature and appeal and picked up over 50 million Spotify streams alone, putting her on the global music map in a big way. Her increasingly high-profile list of collaborators have almost always contacted her to suggest teaming up after hearing her voice on another record, rather than the other way round. With some seriously big-name partnerships in the work, her voice will continue to reach an ever-wider audience. Trained in piano as a child, she taught herself guitar and began her journey by learning and performing cover versions of her favourite songs. Initially influenced by bands like The Kooks and Arctic Monkeys, she gained a love of hip-hop while on a school exchange year in the US, and as her interest in music making developed, she asked her brother’s friend to show her his production gear. That friend was the producer now known as Mazde, and the two soon collaborated on a track together. The result was the classy slice of laid-back vocal house Pitch Black — LissA’s debut. Try and ask her what kind of music she makes and her face will screw up a little as she struggles to find anything as easy as a straightforward answer: “I tell people ‘electro pop’... but if I say ‘pop’ it gives me the creeps because I don’t want to be typical ‘pop’... and I also can’t say I do ‘electro’ because people think of techno. It’s hard!” Her musical diversity keeps her on her toes and is something she’s keen to continue. “It doesn’t get boring that way. You won’t listen to three songs of mine and say “they’re all the same”. My voice and my writing is the key thing, just surrounded by different types of music.” In keeping with her thoroughly modern approach, an album isn’t necessarily the be all and end all for her. Nor is becoming the biggest mainstream popstar in the world what she’s after. She wants to reach the biggest audience possible, but without compromising her sound. “I could sit down and think — OK, if someone is drunk in the club, what do they want to listen to? And then make that. But I don’t want that. I want to reach people that are more interested in deeper lyrics and stories. It just takes a longer time to grow a fanbase that way.” She’ll continue to release a steady stream of stunning singles, EPs and collaborations, and is gradually developing her plans for the live shows that her fanbase has been clamoring for. As ever, she’ll do it on her own terms, in her own time. No rush; nothing forced. The harmonious approach she takes to music making extends to all aspects of her career, and it’s surely one of the things that has helped her to get to where she is today. Make no mistake though; she’s just getting started.