Although every track on Erika de Casier’s fourth record begins with a subtle fade, Lifetime arrives entirely out of the blue; a surprise, self-released album full to bursting with some of her most resonant songwriting yet.
Lifetime comes just a year after Still, which saw the Portuguese-born, Denmark-based singer-songwriter and producer venture further into the foreground of modern alt-pop. It was first teased as a mysterious set of unlabelled cassettes on Bandcamp, before an inevitable YouTube leak let the eleven tracks loose. Days later the full album emerged officially in its entirety, de Casier’s first to be entirely self-written, self-produced, and released via her own label, Independent Jeep Music
Although I’ve never been to Copenhagen, listening to Lifetime I imagine myself wandering late at night past the iconic pink, blue, and orange buildings along the harbour, the cord of my earbuds tugging at the top of a warm jacket, hands freezing. Like many I’ve been addicted to the music coming of out of the city for the past few years; something really is in the air, with de Casier part of an exponentially growing scene including peers like ML Buch, Molina, Astrid Sonne, and Clarissa Connelly, all of whom studied at Denmark’s Rhythmic Music Conservatory.
Feeling both spacious and intensely intimate, acoustic sounds drenched in lush reverb take the fore on Lifetime, with a particular focus on live drum breaks; chopped and reversed to perfection. Nothing is ever out of place, whether it's a dial tone, a shimmering synth stab, or a horse’s whinny on my favourite, ‘Delusional’.
Capturing an essence of ‘90s and Y2K triphop and R&B, Lifetime doesn’t feel like a facsimile of the past, but rather something grounded intensely in the now. Both the production and vocals draw inexorable comparisons to greats like Aaliyah, Cassie, and Sade, with de Casier’s icy cool vocals whispering effortlessly, as though she’s just picked up the phone (the album’s working title was Midnight Caller).
They’re also some of her most vulnerable and introspective lyrics to date. While de Casier has always explored the unique intricacies of love, yearning, and uncertainty in the modern digital era, Lifetime has elements of something darker and more dissonant. On tracks like ‘Moan’, almost indecipherable hints of lyrics drift hauntingly between dub-adjacent keys, imparting meaning through texture alone. On ‘You Can't Always Get What You Want’, a rumination on ageing and the inescapable passage of time, de Casier is conscious of her own mortality, “What you see in me is a symbol of my youth - a promise I can’t keep to you.” It’s through this ephemerality that de Casier creates something timeless, an everlasting impression of the everyday transients that form her world.
Words by John Troughton