THE SCRAPE - ISSUE 1
Laryssa Birdseye - By Silver Cypress
There's a special neurosis in "middle kid syndrome." Famous middle kids in fiction and nonfiction miss out on the attention, good and bad. Amazement for the trail-blazing oldest, adoration for the youngest. Middle kids tend to end up being chronically anxious, even morose (I can speak from first-hand experience). The feelings of being overlooked and under appreciated often make the middle kids work harder, with an attention to detail that borders on obsessive-compulsive. For middle kids, the music industry is an especially harsh mistress.
Portland's own Laryssa Birdseye makes middle kid syndrome work for her. She hasn't just overcome the ardors of chronic depression and anxiety. She's leaning in. Songwriting is how she spelunks her pain. It's an act of "excavation" . "Beautiful things come from this brain and these troubles. That's why I'm a musician."
She lists suicidal confessional poets, Plath and Sexton, as some of her early writing influences. She finds inspiration in the Sisyphus myth. With a love for frank explorations of pain and anxiety, you'd expect shy, introverted guitar slogs with whispered vocals.
Far from it.
Laryssa Birdseye makes colossal sounds. On her latest EP, "Dam- ages," her vocals morph from soulfully clean to auto-tuned chordal harmony to thick unisons. It's uptempo electro pop tinged with eerie psychedelics. Her 2021 single, "Shame," revs from Alessia Cara's "Here" to gargantuan gospel choruses. Like the last moments on He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named's "Ultralight Beam." Towards the end of the song, she's wailing like The Gossip's Beth Ditto on "Nite."
“Treat me like I'm nothing and I promise I’ll come runnin’. It's though somethin’ in me's broken, I can't stop.”
Hearing lyrics like these over such dancy production could be jarring, but Laryssa more than pulls it off. The soundscape is dark and spatial. Seductive, even.
2023's "Serotonin" is a deceptively poppy excavation of her depressive mind. It's got a world music beat, Genesis-adjacent detuned keyboards and huge harmonies on the hook. It's like Phoebe Bridgers lyrics over soulful electro pop that puts the needle in the red.
Who would've thought songs of weltschmerz and alienation could make you want to get up and move? Laryssa Birdseye turns her neurosis into a planet-sized sound, and one can't help but get stuck in its orbit.
A huge recommendation for middle kids and happy people alike.