Some artists write songs. Others seem determined to construct entire universes. Lolli Wren belongs firmly to the latter camp. The London-based artist, composer, vocalist and producer has developed a creative language where music, character, visual storytelling and vocal experimentation are rarely separated. Her new single, ‘are we alright?’, takes that philosophy into darker territory, turning the anxieties of contemporary existence into an immersive piece of cinematic avant-pop.
The track’s reference point is revealing. Wren draws inspiration from They Live, the 1988 cult science-fiction film famous for its paranoid vision of a reality concealed beneath the ordinary. Rather than simply borrowing its aesthetics, she translates its unease into a distinctly modern setting. Doomscrolling becomes a kind of ritual, urban life becomes strangely alienating and the pressure of late-stage capitalism hangs over everything. The song sounds like the soundtrack to a city where everyone has received the same alarming memo but nobody knows what it says.
Wren’s voice gives the production its most striking colour. Her range extends beyond four octaves, but numbers only tell part of the story. She uses distortion, agility, choral layering and vocal textures to make the song feel inhabited, as though different characters are constantly appearing at the edges of the frame. Every backing vocal is her own, reinforcing the sense that the entire world of the track is being generated from one extraordinarily versatile performer.
And yet the grand concept ultimately leads somewhere quite tender. Wren has described ‘are we alright?’ as a way of reaching out to people experiencing the same existential heaviness, which transforms its dystopian imagery into something almost comforting. Following her debut album To Build A Sea, the track suggests an artist becoming increasingly confident in the scale of her imagination. The world may be strange, but Wren’s answer is not to look away. It is to make the strangeness beautiful enough that we might finally look at it together.