Toronto R&B artist Lais shares his brand new EP, 114. Tracks like “Moon & Stars 2” and “Just Us” set a drowsy, drugged out mood, but Lais picks up the pace on club-ready cut “Remember Me Gold,” a four-on-the-floor ode to a relationship unravelling. The sound on 114 definitely draws from Toronto’s rising dark, industrial R&B movement. "Toronto’s the hub right now," Lais tells Complex. "The scene is small and tight knit with a lot of artists, but only a few making noise. I feel like just because it is so tight knit, it breeds competition between artists, but in a way it’s good because the music keeps getting better and better.” Lais thrives in the template popularized by PARTYNEXTDOOR, but his long-term ambition is to take the sound to new territory. “When people say Toronto sound, you picture something dark, gritty and fueled with emotion, and that’s not too far from where it is right now. But I feel like the cities breaking out of the stereotype and showing it’s capable of taking the core sound and bending it into so many other genres."
“114 is the home I moved to when I first moved to Canada from Virginia, and this EP chronicles the lifestyle I lived out here and the things I experienced while I was at this address, from the relationships and parties to the drugs,” he says. “I want this EP to be the end of this chapter, the end of this address and bringing through a new phase of my life.”
114 isn’t Lais debut project, but for all intents and purposes, we should be looking at it that way. “114 was the first time I approached a project as a cohesive body of work,” he says. “With Session One I was trying a bunch of different sounds just seeing what I could do, I consider that a collection of songs rather than an actual EP/Album.” The attention to detail certainly shows. The seven-track effort flows from song to song naturally, with Lais’ understated croon acting as the centerpiece to lush, down-tempo production from CVRE and Vinnyx. “We all got in the room and made the beats around the vocals so it all blends together really well,” Lais adds. “I've scrapped multiple versions of 114 because they didn't sit right, but I feel like the end result came out classic.” Stream the project below.
