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Melbourne-based singer/songwriter Leo takes us track-by-track by way of their breathtaking, shiver-inducing debut EP ‘Please Depart Quietly,’ an intimate, in-your-face report unpacking trauma, processing ache, and channeling angst and internal turmoil into uncooked, soul-stirring indie rock magnificence.
Stream: “Tough Arms” – Leo
Once I tried speaking, therapist referred to as it surprising. Via teary eyes she requested how I really feel deep inside…
Unfiltered, unapologetic, and unbelievably uncooked, Leo’s debut EP is as lovely as it’s breathtaking.
Songwriting, particularly introspective songwriting, is usually likened to a deep-dive into the self – and on Please Depart Quietly, the Australian artist plunges headfirst into their darkest depths, hitting arduous and holding nothing again as they choose aside their turbulent teenagers and early twenties. In some respects, this report is a traditional coming-of-age filled with demons and typical teenage melodrama: “Let’s get straight all the way down to it: I’ve been feeling like sh*t,” Leo sings with all their may at one level, channeling unknown ranges of angst right into a hearty and impassioned upheaval. It’s a sentiment that feels in so some ways like a thesis assertion, and but it’s simply one in every of this EP’s many memorable, emotionally charged moments of reckoning. Leo’s turmoil is contemporary, feverish, and in-your-face all through Please Depart Quietly as they unpack their trauma, course of their ache, and switch agony into magnificence by way of 5 fiery, soul-stirring indie rock songs.
You’ve received tough fingers, you’ve received callouses
You’re employed within the farm home
and I’m in your canine home.
You didn’t wanna see me,
and I wouldn’t wanna see me too.
Although I nonetheless love you,
even if you’re killing too.
You left me down by the road
and also you weren’t meant to.
And my ideas they’re creeping in
and that i’m screaming in my sleep.
And my nightmares they’re coming again,
it’s an indication that shits not going proper.
Calculating when can be my final evening.
I’ve heard if I blink 3 times say my title
within the evening possibly issues will flip proper
Independently launched April 5, 2024, Please Depart Quietly is a surprising and really singular introduction to Naarm / Melbourne-based singer/songwriter Leo, who tends – or reasonably, mission – to say the quiet components aloud of their music. The Australian artist, born Leo McCloskey, debuted their mononymous artistry through the shiver-inducing single “Physician” in 2022, and has been steadily introducing themselves ever since, garnering comparisons to artists like Bec Stevens and Angie McMahon within the course of due to an brisk and cinematic sound full of warmth, friction, and a seemingly unstoppable tenacity.
Underpinning that music is a vulnerability so brutal, that it typically hurts.
And in the event you ask Leo about it, they’ll probably say that’s the purpose: Every one in every of these songs is a large cathartic launch because the artist confronts their very own internal demons – spilling their guts candidly, overtly, and truthfully.
“Please Depart Quietly is an ode to my late teenagers and early twenties,” the singer/songwriter tells Atwood Journal. “From my late teenagers, it encapsulates sitting round graveyards in my spare time, consuming Little Fats Lamb, to lastly going to remedy (nonetheless on the lookout for the correct one) and having to deal with all that I attempted to imagine had by no means damage me. I performed music dwell for a number of years and received referred to Jonathon Tooke by way of Eaglemont, which is the place the EP received kicked off. After our first session, we right away knew that we’d be making an EP.”
“The tone for the EP was set on the primary day of recording after we recorded the demo for ‘Half Unconscious,’ they proceed. “I’ve a considerably obsessive perception in my head that teams of songs match into time durations inside my head. For instance, the EP has the songs that match into the ‘loveless/isolation interval,’ and the demos recorded subsequently are a special interval. All songs had been recorded within the order through which they seem on the EP, and there was a unconscious stamp that ended the EP after we recorded ‘Thursday Morning.’ Musically, there’s a ghost-like atmosphere all through the EP which signifies each lyrical and musical intentions for the EP.”
Half unconscious, state of loving
something within the grave mattress.
Hanging on to all I noticed in you
despite the fact that you had a pedestal.
Shopping for in to each phrase you stated,
popping out of a one yr older head.
Taking what I wanted from one of many nicest
I may consider, you had been my begin off.
Due to you the graveyard is singing
and due to you, you trigger desolation
And due to you I can’t assist
however marvel what may’ve been
Possibly suppose I blamed you
’trigger this can be a tune of despise.
I assumed I cherished you
however I gained’t neglect what you probably did that evening.
And my finest good friend, they couldn’t comprehend
why I used to be so f*ing mesmerised
Together with your extensive eyes i’m hating
how I gave you a lot time
– “Half Unconscious,” Leo
Leo describes Please Depart Quietly as a melodramatic, legitimate, and introspective report. The title of their EP is itself sufficient to make our hair stand on finish: “The title was written round an assumptious mentality of ‘I do know you’re going to depart and that’s okay – I’m used to it. However if you do, please depart quietly,’” they clarify.
So far as first-looks are involved, Please Depart Quietly is a strong, unforgettable best-foot-forward, its songs as catchy as they’re cathartic and charged.
“I feel that Please Depart Quietly is an effective introduction to my music because it ‘does what it says on the field,’ so-to-speak,” Leo displays. “Each the EP and dwell reveals depend on the lyrical nature of the songs of their darkish and typically sarcastic themes. When making the EP, I wished the entire songs to be recorded in a means that made them potential to carry out solely dwell (as I wasn’t able to delve into monitor) and with not more than 4 individuals together with myself.”
From the explosive opening moments of “Half Unconscious” to the searing, confessional churn of “Thursday Morning,” Please Depart Quietly is an all-consuming fifteen-minute barnburner.
Of observe is “Tough Arms,” the achingly visceral third monitor that additionally served as Leo’s third tune launch when it got here out final June. “A sonically and emotionally charged indie rock/pop reverie, “Tough Arms” is a uncooked internal reckoning of the very best order, discovering the singer/songwriter dwelling in an intimate house of vulnerability and volatility,” Atwood Journal wrote upon the monitor’s launch final yr. “All of us damage now and again, however for a few of us, that invisible ache is extra intense and extra frequent… In bringing their very own despair to life so vividly by way of tune, Leo provides a lifeline to all who want it – and a method of connection to all who lengthy to be seen, to be felt, and to be heard.”
Whereas all 5 of those songs have the ability to take listeners’ breath away – once more, that’s the purpose – EP nearer “Thursday Morning” is very haunting, its uncooked lyrics an unflinching reflection of the artist’s lived expertise: “It’s Thursday morning, my tooth are gnawing. They’re going by way of my cheeks, my hearts bruised and I’m weak,” Leo sings scorching on the mic – and for a second, it feels prefer it’s simply us and them collectively in the identical room as they admit, “I’ve been eroding, my mind imploding. I’ve nothing to say and if I did, you may take me the unsuitable means. Once I tried speaking, therapist referred to as it surprising. Via teary eyes she requested how I really feel deep inside.” It’s arduous to not really feel the burden of aching and alienation pile on inside, coming to a breaking level simply in time for a large, anthemic climax:
It’s like I’m 14 once more.
Sitting in graveyards of the useless.
I’m 21, how? Sitting out the entrance of a cemetery now.
I’m feeling my emotions the identical means,
I can’t love and it’s all a disaster
“It was a deep pleasure to lastly end ‘Thursday Morning’ after a lot lyrical turmoil and indecisiveness over 2021-2023,” Leo says on the subject of favourite moments. “To be sharing a tune that also resonates with me and my experiences with psychological sickness means rather a lot to me.”
They additional spotlight 4 of their favourite lyrics, every one seemingly extra uncovered than the final:
- from “Half Unconscious”: I’m hating how I gave you a lot time. “This line means rather a lot to me as being re-written from some butt-kissing malarkey, this line reclaims the fact that being handled badly will ultimately at all times eventuate in realising that irrespective of how a lot somebody issues to you, their hurt will damage and depart a stain.”
- from “Tendencies”: I put up with you, you’re unhinged and unstable too. I feel I like you. “This line encapsulates the tough ideas we frequently have concerning ourselves but the generally disregarded act of difficult these ideas.”
- from “Thursday Morning”: Once I tried speaking, therapist referred to as it surprising. Via teary eyes she requested how I really feel deep inside. “Scripting this line felt very therapeutic as I really feel it holds the sensation of when somebody cries in your behalf after they hear what you’ve been/are going by way of. This line was genuinely written after seeing a therapist that cried once I advised her about my trauma. To be dry eyed and watch somebody cry over your actuality doesn’t really feel nice.”
- and from “Thursday Morning: It’s Thursday morning, my tooth are gnawing. They’re going by way of my cheeks that is me telling you I’m getting weak. “This line feels just like the core of the EP’s message. Chewing cheeks may be such a impactful to self but delicate to others marker of the way you’re actually doing as nobody can see it. This tune encapsulates a comparability of feels between the age of 14 and 23. Once I was 14 I didn’t need to burden anybody with how I used to be feeling and however once I received to ending this tune between 21 and 23, my thoughts received too heavy to hold alone so I needed to inform somebody. This line signifies each the continuing impacts of psychological sickness in addition to the significance of telling somebody (in my case lastly) how a lot issues are actually hurting.”
Writing these songs meant writing concerning the instances I’d by no means felt extra alone, however singing them and having them be heard meant feeling secure.
There’s rather a lot to remove from Leo’s debut EP, however maybe essentially the most lesson from these songs is that we’re not alone in what we’re going by way of.
Please Depart Quietly often is the product of turbulence – and the songs themselves are filled with a uncooked, palpable internal warmth and an unshakeable, unstable vitality – however indisputably, this report is a secure house for all these working by way of despair, anxiousness, suicidal ideas, and extra. Not as soon as does Leo sugarcoat their ache or play one thing off as being simpler than it was to take care of or work by way of; as a substitute, they shine a light-weight on open wounds and sing, achingly and truthfully, about these invisible scars we should so typically disguise from a surface-level-loving world.
However right here, we may be free, like Leo, to carry nothing again. Unfiltered, unapologetic, and unbelievably uncooked: These are the traits of a heavy coronary heart and soul unleashed by way of music.
“As a lot as it’s stated, and validly so, I hope that this EP holds house through which individuals can really feel no matter they’ve been feeling and an area that helps them to really feel much less alone,” Leo shares. “Writing these songs meant writing concerning the instances I’d by no means felt extra alone, however singing them and having them be heard meant feeling secure.”
“Creating and placing out Please Depart Quietly gave me the braveness to put in writing the narrative of the story I felt too scared to inform. Having arduous and unfair issues occur to you typically doesn’t welcome a secure house to share these circumstances, however placing the tales and emotions that I held into Please Depart Quietly meant that I may share the secrets and techniques that I had been holding onto for too lengthy. Secrets and techniques and lies make your physique damage, and I don’t need to welcome that.”
Expertise the complete report through our under stream, and peek inside Leo’s Please Depart Quietly EP with Atwood Journal because the artist takes us track-by-track by way of the music and lyrics of their debut EP!
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:: stream/buy Please Depart Quietly right here ::
:: join with Leo right here ::
Stream: ‘Please Depart Quietly’ – Leo
:: Inside Please Depart Quietly ::
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Half Unconscious
“Half Unconscious” was the primary tune written, recorded and completed for the EP. It was first written with fairly a self-deprecating lens in 2016 and completed/partly re-written in 2020 to reclaim the precise narrative behind the tune’s that means… Not the one I used to be led into believing.
Erase Me
“Erase Me” was written on the forefront of covid about so deeply wanting to have the ability to be alone however nonetheless needing the validation that somebody will nonetheless be there if you get again. When recording it with Jonathon Tooke, the central purpose was to make the tune really feel as uncomfortable because the themes being explored lyrically, e.g., “I see myself swallowing forks” and “lock me in a room with no key.” We did this with the dissonance you possibly can hear within the guitars, symbolising a fraught second and with the comparative loud dynamics on this tune, standing for a way loud your thoughts can get when it needs to.
Tough Arms
Consider it or not, “Tough Arms” was initially a country-esqe ballad that had nothing however the first verse (of the now “Tough Arms”) sung at lower than half the present tempo with double the emotion. Figuring out an extended model of “Tough Arms” coincided with me enjoying round with extra representations of chords and thus altering the form of the prior G chord which welcomed a refrain and an additional verse. With Jono, we (as per common), upped the tempo and shifted the tune into one thing you may cry to (while you dance).
Tendencies
“Tendencies” was written in a dialog model from a 3rd individual perspective whereby something goes – just like the comedy channel roast specials however (usually) far more shallow. The tune addresses the tough and fast nature that anxiousness presents for me whereby something stated and any ideas had are absolute.
Thursday Morning
“Thursday Morning” was the final tune written and completed for the EP. It nearly didn’t make it as a lot had modified between writing it in 2021 and signing it off for the EP in 2023, that it felt just like the contents wouldn’t maintain true in releasing it. Fortunately, Jono was deeply affected person in ready (and gently encouraging) for me to complete off the tune proper as we despatched it off for mixing. It looks like the right nearer for the EP as though issues are higher than they as soon as had been, psychological sickness has a means of at all times making you bear in mind it’s nonetheless there.
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:: stream/buy Please Depart Quietly right here ::
:: join with Leo right here ::
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© Claire Giuffre
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