We Speak Music
LLOREN puts us in a ‘California Daydream’ with new single
LLOREN is a burgeoning pop star whose infectious and epic music you have probably heard already, but not actually known it yet. With tracks appearing recently in Greys Anatomy, The L Word, 1923, Wish, The Company You Keep, Made In Chelsea, Love Island UK & USA and more, LLOREN’s own music has been moving its way gradually into the wider consciousness since she got to the finals of The Voice UK in 2018, setting the stage for her emergence as the next alt-pop force of nature.
Her rich, versatile vocal, emotional melodies and cinematic, powerful contemporary inspired compositions have been embraced heavily by the sync/TV/trailer music world since her 2019 debut single ‘Into The Fire’, which also saw her invited to join American artist Fleurie on her first European tour. During the tour, she caught the eyes of promoters who invited her back to open for household names Johannes Oerding and Michael Patrick Kelly.
In the UK, LLOREN is no stranger to the annual PRIDE celebrations having played both Manchester and London where she headlined the women’s stage and has entertained crowds over 10000. She has also toured with Canadian artist Mauvey with whom she collaborated with on the track ‘Pillow’, performing it at BBC Radio 1’s Big Weekend as well as the Isle Of Wight Festival 2023.
LLOREN, aka Lauren Bannon, is now moving forward with her own artist project again, with an album on the way later this year and with a huge new single ‘California Daydream’ coming out May 17th.
‘California Daydream’, with its pounding 80s inspired rhythms and blissful, cinnamon-sweet pop emotions conjures all the best heart strings tugging cinema moments. The song’s portrayal of a perfect, idealised love made for the ‘silver screen’ subtly suggests that this depiction is more fiction than reality. By likening the relationship to a Hollywood fantasy and referencing iconic figures like James Dean, the lyrics create an atmosphere of romanticised nostalgia but love on the silver screen is scripted, pure fantasy.
“Nothing gets me higher than this dopamine” in the chorus hints at the addictive nature of chasing these idealised fantasies. It suggests that the pursuit of perfect love, as depicted in movies and celebrity culture, can be intoxicating but ultimately fleeting.
On the track, LLOREN explains, “In essence, while the song celebrates the allure of romanticised love, the beauty of it, but it also subtly alludes to the unrealistic expectations perpetuated by popular culture. But ye, it’s also totally just a fun pop song.”
‘California Daydream’, was produced by London based producer, songwriter and mixer Charlie T who has been involved in both Brit and Grammy nominated projects, including working at Pink Floyd’s Britannia Row Studios engineering for Paul McCartney, London Grammar, Ed Sheeran and many more. Charlie is now a resident at The Kinks-owned studio, Konk, in North London and has recently worked with the likes of Jax Jones, Kygo, Calum Scott, Lost Frequencies, James TW, James Bay, Sam Fischer and many more.
Michele Ducci has unveiled the second single, ‘Woman Like You’, from his forthcoming album and animated film ‘Snail in the Clouds’.
‘Woman Like You’ pairs bright distorted electric guitar with an electronic drumbeat, adding in Ducci’s soulful vocals and a catchy uplifting chorus with Letizia Mandoleisi’s sweet vocal harmonies. A vintage organ pedalboard operated by Ducci simultaneously generates chords, bass and rhythm, like a one-man band. Shane Kennedy (Girl in the Year Above) joins in on guitar. Simon Milner (Is Tropical, Ysing) recorded and produced the track at his 4am Studios in London.
The album and film tell the story of a planet called ‘Snail’, inhabited by hybrids – primarily a mixture between scorpions, snails and humans – who lead a life according to the style of Pythagoras, devoted to music. There is also a cloud man named Agostos, a writer of musical operettas, who together with a talking smoke machine called Doctor Subtilis, begins to kill all hybrids, targeting in particular the hybrid musician Diodoros and his band, in an effort to steal the ark of melodies, an ancient ship that allows the whole planet to survive with music and joy.
The video for the single, created and animated by Ducci and Mandoleisi, delves further into the realm of planet ‘Snail’:
Says Ducci, “The ark of melodies, after various attempts, finally starts to work and fly in the planet Snail, while the shady Doc. Sub. and Agostos, with their platoon of soldiers made of foggy smoke, spy the miracle, planning to steal the ark for their evil and tyrannical purposes.”
About the track, Michele says, “I wrote this song for my love Letizia. Love seen from the mind is the sound we make. Sound is the love of matter.
We used a Technics synthesizer organ from a flea market. I tried to find a mood that was right for the song and I started using the bass of the pedal board together with the synth and the drums, and it was magical to hear the song reveal itself all coming from a single instrument. Leti was singing with me and we recorded everything live in one shot. Then we made Shane do the guitar flight, as if he came out of the window. The idea was to maintain disproportions, guitar thrust and synth drum thinness a la Haroumi Hosono, so as to create an estrangement, but naturally: it’s about how I listen, with close up something that captures me in its nuance as element of a larger orchestra somewhere. I’m glad we decided in the studio with Simon to use the layers of arrangement as the close-ups in the cinema; they look like strange enlargements that perch on parts of a mutated orchestra. I’m happy to come back with this love song at a time when everything seems to opt, even my labor in managing the flows of selfishness that have poured out on me while doing this album, for the sound of war. I’m here happy to be able to say that the sound of love always wins as did for me. Snail in the clouds is one of the most important works in my life and I am glad to start from pure love for this album that is my son.”
The album and full-length film will be released on the 5th of June on Monotreme Records.
Michele and Letizia’s previous musical short film, ‘The Great Book of Nature’, is an official selection for the 2026 Venice Shorts Film Festival.
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