Say A Prayer for Little Boots | TQS Magazine

Do people still remember Little Boots? In today’s fast-paced and ruthless music industry, her presence may have been lost a little since the days of smash-hits New In Town and Remedy. Well, let’s remind ourselves. Little Boots came into prominence after winning the BBC Sound Of 2009 poll and was hailed as the next best thing for Britain, heaping on the pressure for a spectacular debut album.

She stayed true to her word and 2009’s Hands was a magical pop album using vintage synths to create a fantastical world for listeners to dive into. With nods to artists such as Gary Numan and The Human League, as well as Kylie, Little Boots was, unashamedly, an artist who simply loved pop music in all its forms and who wanted to explore it.

Now she’s back with fabulous new single Every Night I Say A Prayer, written by Victoria Hesketh (Little Boots) herself as well as Andy Butler from Hercules & The Love Affair. The DJing scene that Hesketh has become involved in is clearly an influence in Little Boots’ new tracks, particularly on teaser single from last year Shake. With a heavy beat that was looped for the entire song and a dirty bassline, Shake had silly lyrics like ‘Everybody shake/ until your heart breaks’ and moved away from the synthpop vibe of Hands, replacing it with a darker, Dance-influenced soundscape.

It was never meant to take itself seriously, though, and Every Night I Say A Prayer is similarly simplistic. Although conforming to the mainstream Dance genre that is so popular at the moment, the new single feels more indie than anything else and nods to the 90s with LOTS of piano. It just screams happiness and provokes dancing, so for that reason I love it. Plus surely sticking to a two-dimensional sound for the whole of your career is a very boring move, surely it’s better that Little Boots continues to wow us with her interpretations of pop music.


 

Having recently previewed upcoming material for her upcoming album at a gig in London’s XOYO, I can say that there are some brilliant tunes, such as Motorway, Headphones and Crescendo, that easily slot in with her earlier material, even though the sound has evolved slightly. Seeing Hesketh live is such a treat – it is pretty much guaranteed that she will use one of her new ‘toys’ for the audience. During the Hands phase, she never let the Japanese sequencing machine called the Tenori-on out of her sight but this seems to be taking a backseat nowadays. She did, however, use a sequencer to build the layers of Shake live for the audience and played the bassline on a stunning laser harp that makes it look as though she’s playing music on the air. This sounded absolutely amazing.

Personally, I love seeing how all the machines and synthesizers produce the music and it’s great to see Hesketh getting her hands dirty and play too. After all, she is the girl who started out posting videos of herself playing covers of Haddaway’s ‘What Is Love’ on the keyboard in her pyjamas. That DIY element to her music is still present. Yay for us.

For anyone who loves good pop music, Little Boots is not only a great recording artist who writes these three minute gems but she is stunningly good live and it is at a gig where she really comes alive.

Words Martin Ward