Yazmin Lacey’s ‘Voice Notes’: In Conversation, Warm to the Touch, and Constantly on the Move

‘Flylo Tweet’ opens the album and it feels like you open your eyes. You open your eyes and Albion Street is in front of you, it’s snowing in March and those chalky foot-on-slurry scrunches from everyone’s feet put a white noise background behind the voice of the woman talking to you. “Self-consciousness is the creativity killer”, she says, and it drifts in one ears, catches on a synapse, and drifts out the other, turning white like your breath. You’re noticing the whiteout windowpanes on the office buildings on either side, noticing her voice locking in and breaking out of the voices passing through your vicinity, noticing that good old daylight, slanting like a razor blade cutting the buildings in half. You’re noticing, with the woman’s voice (the whole of Leeds’ voice) in your ear, and a million stimulants in your eyes, how the whole thing does feel like a jazz piece, a conversation between hi-hats and piano. Morrison ensnared all city streets in a way when she spoke on Harlem. The woman is talking about what’s shaped her, what it looks like when she lets go, what it feels like when she takes a dive, and then the talking stops and somewhere deep in your ear, or far behind you, she starts singing.

Nottingham-based Yazmin Lacey is an artist who has steadily been growing a following for some years, leading up to the release of her first album, Voice Notes. It’s a more-than-pleasant listen featuring a heavy incidence of well-executed genre-dabbling and the nimble and addictive utilisation of a fine-tuned and unique vocal instrument. ‘Fool’s Gold’ is imbued with somnolent charm, along with a subtle pumping pace that keeps your ears on alert and storytelling in keeping with Lacey’s lyrical talents. Voice Notes’ lyrics and song structures never feel methodical or produced-to-death. Lacey just churns out vividly rendered, heartily feminine narratives laid like gossamer on top of neo-soul and jazz-leaning instrumentals beside cool and introspective spoken word pieces that call back to the name of the album.

The whole disk feels as if it calls back and forth to itself, in conversation, warm to the touch, and constantly on the move. ‘Where Did You Go?’ asks the title of a song which flicks between different vocal processings of Yazmin’s voice overlapping one another, swelling and retreating. “From A Lover” is another title, leaning refreshingly into offbeat reggae rhythms. “Pass It Back” languishes softly, restlessly against funky flourishes of electric guitar. Along with these, we have “Sign And Signal”, “Tomorrow’s Child” and “Legacy”- this is an album casually but consistently fixated on where things come from, where they go, and where they’ll end up. As a consequence, you’re caught in the constant movement it generates. For me, this movement was only lost on ‘Late Night People’, which lacks some of the captivating pace of the rest of the album, doubling down on the relaxed energy but in the effort losing some of the detail and commitment the rest of the disk exudes.

It was interesting to mark the difference between Lacey’s ‘Legacy’ and a cut from Lianne La Havas’ 2020 self-titled album: ‘Bittersweet’. Both use ‘summer rain’ as a metaphor for the pain of love (lost?), but whereas La Havas belts about transformation (“bittersweet summer rain, I’m born again), Lacey purrs “sweet summer rain, when you part us, I’ll spend my days brokenhearted… It’s a shame, I wish that we had more time”. La Havas’ summer rain nourishes the present, but it is the legacy of Lacey’s that she’s interested in. Here she’s focusing on what the album loves to revolve around- the disparity between the past, the present, and the future and the discomfort concomitant with knowing those three can never be the same. This is just one of many examples of how Voice Notes is an ethereal album, yes, but a gorgeously human one, too. That is where lies its appeal. The voice of the album has all the same fears as the listener does about communication, the passage of time, and growth, and as a consequence artist and audience fall comfortably in unison as you listen. It’s a satisfying experience to hear an album that never stagnates due to its interest in time and movement. It takes your hand and leads you through the serialised stories it tells at a bouncing pace, and the result is an hour-long batch of tracks which could just as easily accompany and motivate your quotidian chores as it could hold your attention for its duration.

Voice Notes is a lovely and well-rounded debut from Yazmin Lacey that provides the listener with a mature and familiarly British take on jazz and neo-soul styles. At once moving, whimsical and beautifully paced, it’s a versatile and entertaining remedy for existential qualms which fulfills and furthers expectations with grace and restraint.

Voice Notes is available to stream now.