Last year April a delightful electropop song popped up on Soundcloud, “Waterproof” by a girl called Lyel. Indie Pop-Ups immediately had a crush on the song, which turned out to be the debut single by the Helsinki-based Sarah Endress. In the meantime there is a successor released, “Raven”. As we believe she will hit it big time soon, now is the moment to get to know her. We asked her about her background, inspirations and plans.
As you may not know, Sarah is not originally from Helsinki, but hails from Germany. Her moving to Finland wasn’t actually planned. In the summer of 2008 she went for a holiday trip to meet a friend, but then decided to stay. She found herself there and gradually grew into the person and musician that she has always wanted to be, she tells us. It was an emotional period of time. Besides being sad and missing her friends and family, she found magic and happiness in the beautiful city of Helsinki.
“If there is one thing my time here in Finland has taught me, it is ‘Sisu’ which can be translated to persistence or endurance and to never give up.”
When only a couple of years old, Sarah was addicted to playing around with a plastic microphone and keyboard. And she already knew what she wanted to do: write and perform music! But only later on in life she learned to play the piano properly. And one day she just started writing her own songs and had different band projects, first in Germany and then in Finland. Through writing music, Sarah also found a way to heal from life’s emotions and difficulties, just like the transition to Finland became an inspiration to her.
A lot of other things inspire Sarah: nature, meditation, movies but most of all the love for her family, her mom and brothers in particular. Also music is an inspiration. Just like us Sarah loves to discover unknown artists on Soundcloud, Youtube and Spotify. If she could be one artist for a day, it would be Sia, as Sarah admires her for her ability to write one amazing song after another. Sarah is ambitious but tries not to look too far ahead. But of course she would love to write and share more music, she admits, and do it professionally as long as she can.
“Lyel is my first solo-project and right now I consider it my ‘final-destination’, something I’ve worked towards all these years, gathering experience and developing as an artist.”
Sarah is not only passionate about music, but also about a healthy and compassionate lifestyle. She stands by a vegan lifestyle and hopes to be sharing her experiences in the future. Good food has add much to her life, she claims. It has helped her to get rid of depression and anxiety, and be more happy. It seems Sarah is very much at ease with herself. And ready to grow and put her music out there. To share it with us fans and the rest of the world. Get ready!
As mentioned in the introduction, Lyel’s debut single “Waterproof” was released in April 2015, with “Raven” following in December. Here are the reviews of the two songs.
About nine months ago the debut single “Waterproof” by the young Sarah Endress appeared, under the pseudonym of Lyel. It’s a dreamy electropop song with sweet girl vocals which sound very catchy. Endress wrote the song with producer Milos Rosas. They created a delightful, radio-friendly song with some 80s influences. A few months after, the song was accompanied by a carefree summery video.
After the video release of “Waterproof” it became quiet for a few months. But the fact that there was no immediate successor released, indicates that the songs are chosen carefully. There also didn’t appear a remix-EP of “Waterproof” with endless dance mix variants. One reason may be that the successor is not a dance record. The new single “Raven” is in fact an emotional pop ballad where synthesizer strings are quite present. Fortunately it is never over the top. Lyel’s voice sounds fragile, and very nearby, which is emphasized by the little use of reverb. The song has a sincere dramatic feel and is guaranteed to give you goosebumps! It is a mature step after “Waterproof” and that already shows that Lyel has more to offer.
To conclude, the two songs indicate that Lyel takes her time to develop, and that promises a future quirky indie pop princess, following in the Scandinavian footsteps of Bertine Zetlitz, Oh Land, Annie and Robyn.
Lyel is an unsigned artist. You can buy her songs at iTunes. For more information:
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