LEYMA
LONDON SEBRIGHT ARMS ANNOUNCED
Listen to new single ‘ExtraExtra’ HERE
London Sebright Arms, Fri 24 May
Tickets onsale HERE
“With a microscopic eye for observational details, Max Hanley’s lyrics paint bigger pictures with the small scraps of life that get overlooked" - NME
"Cut from the same smooth, jazz-flecked cloth as Rex Orange County and Yellow Days" - DIY
"Bedroom productions veer from wayward pop to outright abstraction, the sound of an artist stretching his limbs" - Clash
'ExtraExtra' comes in the wake of a huge 2018 for the East Londoner, whose impactful pair of singles 'Lavender' and 'bumpintheroad' established Max Hanley as a voice of the youth in the capital, tackling issues including drug use, mental health and the preconceptions about teenage life in 2019.
Leyma's candid lyrical insights are set against a backdrop of amalgamated genres, bringing together elements of hip hop, indie, r&b and alternative pop to craft something entirely unique and refreshingly relevant.
Speaking about 'ExtraExtra' Leyma said:
"I liked the old imagery of newspapers and taking a step back from being in front of the screens that we surround ourselves with every day. Becoming 18 and seeing how much instagram or whatever rules the people I know, me included, sort of opened my eyes a bit. I think the way we rely on our phones and constant communication with everyone’s a bit jarring. I'd be a hypocrite to say I don't use my phone all the time, because I do, but “ExtraExtra” is asking whether it's helping us or hindering us.
These topics aren't really vocalised enough. We all “wake up and (I) say nothing”, but I do think that everyone sort of knows what's happening isn't healthy. With the line “I wonder what life was like on a landline”, I can only really imagine that everything was different. That mental health among the youth wasn't as prominent. That you had more time to go do things “instead of focus on the timeline”. I won't ever know, but it's mad thinking about how recently that was. I know how comparing yourself to other people can fuck you up, talking first hand. The thing is, that's just what social media is now just a bragging platform, where we all take ourselves too seriously, a toxic place to be.
Being adolescent is difficult enough, without this constant judgment of who you are and what you're doing. I feel for the people who are 14 right now, dealing with all that stress."