Between soloing with dog barks, bitcrushing 4/4 kicks into cyber-mush, and throwing autotune against the lockers until it coughs up its lunch money, Laura Les lives a pretty normal life. On an average day, she gets up, drinks some coffee or Monster, cleans her room, works on music, and then clocks eight hours at a small empanada restaurant near her home in Chicago.
Over the years Laura Les, (f.k.a osno1) has dropped a gamut of projects, each as impressive as the next. hello kitty skates to the fuckin CEMETARY is a delicately emotive five-part soundscape that evokes the subtle comfort of being afraid. The licks are rich and there’s no filler whatsoever. Les describes the album as, “A bunch of songs about dead bodies.” The opening cut “ditch a body in the laundry” is a patient, piercing, and melancholy ballad with a heartfelt feature verse from Dylan Brady.
Les and Brady have a duo called 100 gecs, and their self-titled album is an animated venture into apocalyptic pop. I don’t know what it would feel like to be electrocuted at Chuck E. Cheese’s, but listening to this album is surely the closest thing to it. 100 gecs is praised by fans and producers alike. “bloodstains,” has been remixed by 99jakes, dontloveme, dynastic, CRAPFACE, and Amy Axedale. Laura remixed it twice herself. She told me the new 100 gecs album is called 1000 gecs and it’ll come out before the end of 2018.
In 2017, she dropped i just dont wanna name it anything with “beach” in the title. It’s a standout EP stacked with post-pop bangers laced with vulnerable lyrics. It opens with “how to dress as human,” a bubbly track about being trans. She sings, “I’m never gonna pass / I should stay home / Why did I make plans? / Drunk in the bathroom / Messing with my skirt / I’ve got hair in my tights and nothing in my shirt / If I paint on some lips / Will they come off with a kiss? – and tell?”
Laura Les’ remix album, simply called REMIXES 2017, is packed with mind-fuck after mind-fuck as she flips “I Miss You,” “London Bridge,” “Magnolia,” “Barbie Girl,” and more into tornadoes of nightcore madness. Her album LETHAL POISON FOR THE SYSTEM is a compilation of “Paper Planes” remixes, and, it’s the grimiest thing I have ever heard. Her most recent project BIG SUMMER JAMS 2018 is saturated, catchy, tropical, and anthemic. It’s the first album she’s dropped under the name Laura Les. Her new album Pilot is expected to come out next year.
We sat down with Laura Les to talk about her musical process, her three upcoming albums, and her daily grind. Check out our interview below.
Underground Underdogs: How does your work life intersect with your music life?
Laura Les: It’s a mixed bag. It’s nice because I can afford to eat and live somewhere, but it sucks because I work full time, so it cuts a lot into the time I have to make music. When it’s slow, I still try to plan and write lyrics and make little beats on my pocket synths as much as possible. It’s a good nine to five, but I’m always trying to keep music at the forefront of my mind. I guess it makes me focus more on projects that are going to make me happy.
On how to dress as human, you sing about serious challenges and insecurities you face in a really vivid and poetic way, but it sounds silly, fun, and playful. How does that contrast translate to you as a person, outside of music?
Well first of all thank you. I don’t think of myself as a very poetic person. I think it’s important to just be truthful over being overly poetic, but when you’re being truthful and nuanced the result just ends up resonating like poetry. I think that’s a big part of how I live too, like as long as I’m being truthful with myself then everything ends up okay in the end. I think the music sounds like that because that’s how it felt to sing about them, it’s a relief to get it all off of your chest. I guess it’s part of my way of working through those problems.
Even when you’re feeling like shit, it feels really good to just let out whatever you’re going through and dance in its face.
You Tweeted that you’re resurrecting a song you made in 2011 for an upcoming project called Pilot. Why did you decide to call back an older style of yours?
I’ve been into the idea of reusing good ideas that I wasn’t able to execute at the time for a while. Like “darkest part of day” was three years old when I finally recorded it. I have so many songs I’d like to share when I feel like I can do them justice. I don’t know if Pilot will be the next thing I do, but that song will come eventually. It’s like a caffeine induced migraine in song form.
What direction would you say your music is going in?
I have no idea where I’m going anymore. Now, I just throw my efforts in a hundred different directions and when I’m happy with something that manifests naturally, I put it out. Right now, I’ve been working on a pop album to be released in the spring. It’s turning out very good.
What’s your relationship with pop music and the term “pop”?
I love pop. I think people try to simplify it down to being one specific sound, but to me pop is more like an energy than a specific genre. I’ve always loved anything with a catchy melody, though. I’d classify pretty much everything I make as pop. My entire music making life has been about how I interact with pop in one way or another.
How did the release of BIG SUMMER JAMS 2018 feel to you?
It was exciting, but I really wanted all of the tracks to be surprises for my Noisey set. The only reason I dropped them before the set was because I had no job, no money, and bills I had to pay that day. It sucks how easily money will fuck up a good idea. I paid the bills though!
As far as the content goes, I’m really happy with it. Basically I just sent out the instrumentals and told everybody to do whatever they wanted, then I edited and spliced together my favorite parts. It was a really fun project and I’m excited to do a sequel this summer. Everybody killed it.
Listen to BIG SUMMER JAMS 2018 below and keep an eye out for 1000 gecs, Pilot, and BIG SUMMER JAMS 2019.
Subscribe to Laura Les’ Patreon for unreleased tracks, early downloads, and exclusive info.