Following a hiatus from music after her understated and impressionable debut album Safe From Me, Laura Fell resurfaced without so much as a hint of a stumble in her stride. Returning in 2024 with the brief At Least I Tried EP, she had no hesitation dissecting heartache and loss in her usual astute and considered way. The EP’s three tracks were sharp and wry, but veiled under a satin softness. “I fucking tried,” she bites on the title track with a tone that sinks deep into your bones before confessing “I’m tired” with a gulp on the following song “Run”. “And how does this make me stronger?” she sings at the EP’s conclusion, the sorrow of real and tangible grief colouring her words as strings crescendo around her.
On her newest EP, Talk It All Apart, the dissection continues. Fell still operates with the precision of a surgeon, her music exact and careful with every note. Working with Berlin-based singer-songwriter and drummer Robert Kretzschmar this time round, the attention to detail is still there – metronome-like soft snares, steadying bass, intricately plucked guitar – but the tone is lighter on the surface. Synths sweetly surround the music in various places, adding a lightly inebriated wooziness to parts of “Outlines”, a bright sheen to opening track “Blur The Line,” and playful marimba tones on “Talk It All Apart” amidst a small squall of birdsong. It brings a new quality to Fell’s music: it’s still dry and deconstructive, but with a gingerly sunnier tone it makes her words feel like they are coming from a masking smile in the company of others. “And why’d you bring that up? / It wasn’t relevant / Just unkind,” she pauses on the title track, not hesitating to call out unhelpful and hurtful behaviour.
And Fell is a deft prosecutor, presenting evidence of a failed relationship in neatly organised couplets that lose none of their pointedness to the brighter disposition. As a psychotherapist by day it’s no surprise that she has this skill; all of the five tracks here offer a jewel of insight in some form or another that are simultaneously personal to her and a revelation you yourself might come to during your own therapy session. “Talk It All Apart” reckons with the potentially destructive nature of wanting to discuss everything over and over and playing out hypothetical scenarios in one’s head. “It’s repetition compulsion / At its very worst / We re-enact what we / Think we deserve,” she concludes with an accepting but casual air, like the answer was obvious all along. On “Losing Game” (which fittingly has a slight air of Chris Isaak’s “Wicked Game”) she laments the frustration of a significant other being closed off. “You drew me in with mystery / I want to look within / But every time I knock your door / You never let me in,” she rues with resignation.
Fell’s deadpan humour also finds its way into the fold. On the lulling “Easier” she isn’t afraid to call out the sometimes vacuous results of therapy. “I pay someone to help me to change / She says it all comes back to Mum and Dad / Who couldn’t give me what they never had,” she sings with the softest barb, like it’s a jibe at herself too. Like much else here, it’s a sharp nail hiding under a pastel-coloured velvet cushion. And that’s perhaps Talk It All Apart’s only downside: while it might veer into evoking classic artists like Joni Mitchell and Carole King, it also loses some of the more curious textures that Safe From Me offered. It’s very easy to let the EP wash over you, as it sings out and sways you with its tender tempos and sanded edges.
But that’s still not too much of a downside, and indeed this feels like the apt place to try something a little different. Fell is currently working on her second album with Mike Lindsay behind the producer’s desk, who feels like a promising fit for her music. Talk It All Apart is a welcome prelude to whatever that album may turn out to be while also serving as a reminder of Fell’s talents as she tries out new surroundings and personnel. If you are anything like me, you mistook the word “Talk” for “Take” at first glance, but the result is not dissimilar: as mentioned, Fell is in dissecting mode here, and she uses her music to break down, analyse, and assess the various stages of relationships. It’s a familiar subject, but is as shrewdly insightful, measured, and wise as you would expect from Fell.
