“It’s all about how how I wanna feel/It’s never been about love”, producer, guitarist and songwriter Léa Sen professes on new single “Luv Him (about u)” with a crystalline crack in her voice. Within the sparsest of expressions, she opens up an uncomfortable truth; not all romantic relationships revolve around love. Sometimes, rooted ideas of love are simply proxies for other sentiments, like lust and desire, or a fear of rejection and loneliness.
“Luv Him (about u)’ is about the desire for a relationship to be something it could never be,” the France-born Sen explains. “Pretending that you love someone more than you actually do (or not at all).”
Adopting fragmented R&B minimalism akin to Tirzah and Coby Sey, Léa Sen composes her lyrics around a repetitive chorus guitar riff. It’s sultry and inviting, but the stark pauses and hard cut-offs suggest an absence, or maybe something left to be desired. This sentiment seems to be expressed in the gorgeous one-shot video as well. It starts off with a closeup inside of a nondescript car, riding shotgun with a faceless mannequin-like figure in the rain. It’s a place of relative safety, but one without much color or feeling as well.
The video ends with Léa Sen stepping out of the vehicle, drenching herself in gasoline and treading close to the surrounding flames, yielding to danger over disquietude. “Sometimes when everything including your own emotions are contradicting themselves, pleasure (or pain) is so simple and straightforward that it’s all you can hold onto.”
“Luv Him (about u)” offers up another glimpse of upcoming self-produced EP You Of Now, Pt. 2, which arrives on April 21st. Listen to the track below and find it on streaming outlets.
You Of Now, Pt. 2 will be released on April 21 via Partisan and can be pre-ordered here. Follow Léa Sen on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.
