Album of the Week: Lauv, ~how i'm feeling~

25-year-old singer-songwriter Ari Leff — aka Lauv — first captured our collective hearts back in 2017 with his saccharine, breakout single ‘I Like Me Better’. A song that started as a voice memo, and ended up a streaming monolith. Now, the musician has finally released his highly-anticipated debut album ~how i’m feeling~, and boy was it worth the wait.

~how i’m feeling~ is 21 tracks full of pristine pop perfection that cement Lauv as one the genres most promising songwriters. It’s also a testament to Leff’s ability to capture specific generational anxieties and wrap them up in a sheeny guise of danceable electro-pop.

The album is full of razor-sharp observations that profoundly encapsulate growing up in the Gen Z era. Throughout the album, Lauv documents heartbreak, addiction, mental illness and medication with the kind of confessional oeuvre one could liken to the golden days of mid-2000s emo. Every single song on this album sounds like it could soundtrack a pink-hued Netflix coming-of-age film and it is so completely soul-nourishing.

Lauv has continuously used his platform as an open dialogue for mental health. Last year, the musician launched My Blue Thoughts — a community-driven mechanism that encourages fans to anonymously record, or write down whatever is on their mind. An essential tool in this hyper-connected yet cripplingly lonely era. These anxieties are exemplified in album track ‘Modern Loneliness’ — a ballad that explores the feelings of being ‘alone together’ in this technology-driven generation.

~how i’m feeling~ features a bunch of previously released ditties that we’ve been thrashing over the past few months, including “i’m so tired…” with Troye Sivan and “fuck, i’m lonely” with Anne-Marie. It also features 11 gorgeous unheard tracks, including collaborations with K-pop superstars BTS and pop’s favourite sad boys LANY.

I can’t believe this day has come.~how I’m feeling~ began from a dark time in my life when I was depressed and having a bit of an existential crisis. I wasn’t sure if I would ever actually be able to make an album,” shares Lauv. “But it marks my journey from my rock bottom at the beginning of 2019 to a stable place of happiness, full self-expression and self-acceptance. This album is everything to me and I hope the world loves it as much as I loved making it.”

Listen to ~how i’m feeling~ below.