Lala Lala’s sophomore record The Lamb was one of 2018’s most underrated indie records; balancing a violent, unpredictable edge with hard-won optimism, it felt like a crystalising of Chicagoan Lillie West’s talents. “Diver”, the first single from her third album, I Want The Door To Open, takes a brighter outlook: featuring baroque instrumentation and a soaring crescendo, it’s a warm introduction to the album, which attempts to reckon with, and fall in love with, life’s Sisyphean struggle.
“I want total freedom, total possibility, total acceptance. I want to fall in love with the rock.”
That’s how Lillie West describes the theme of “Diver,” the song she calls the thesis of Lala Lala’s third record, I Want The Door To Open. The rock in question is a reference to Sisyphus, the mythical figure doomed by the gods to forever push a boulder up from the depths of hell. To West, it is the perfect metaphor for “the labour of living, of figuring out who you are, what’s wrong with you, what’s right with you,” she says. “I think it’s easy to feel like we keep making the same mistakes over and over again, that we never learn, that we’re Sisyphus; but time is actually a spiral that we move up. The key is falling in love with the labour of walking up the mountain.”
“DIVER” from the album “I Want The Door To Open” by Lala Lala (Release date: October 8, 2021)
The Fat Angel Sings 