The opening track, “A Heart That Beats for Me”, is leisurely in its exploration of vocal beauty, not so much in timbre as in prosody, the composition of the words unravelling the delightful intricacies hidden within the accent. The first half of the song is quite ethereal, providing the voice with enough room to take space and blossom, guiding the listener towards it, and letting them appreciate this constituent on its own, a memento that this beauty will always be present, though sometimes masked, even in the more orchestral tracks. The echoes of Lou Hayter’s voice quickly get altered by time, the distancer, yet in their distortion they still mysteriously retain the otherworldly beauty of her voice, just how a beautiful voice might stick in our head and resonate with us, within us, until it’s nothing more than a vague feeling of unexplainable charm, a nebulous memory. “A Heart That Beats For Me” is a display of perfect enunciation, if there ever is such a thing. An ode to language that, just like Lou’s voice in the track, leaves us with a heavenly taste in our soul.

The opening of “Think of Me” manages to instantly set a dreamy, rapturous, comforting atmosphere, with its soothing bass and bouncy piano notes, like a heart skipping a beat, or butterflies in the stomach. Lou’s voice is haunting, amplified by the reverberating chant in the background near the 1:20 mark, maybe presaging JB’s voice joining in halfway through the song, vibrating, vibrant yet calming, and eventually blending in with the bass tone. All of the instruments end on a high note and the more organic tambourine closes the track, its granular sound like sugar. (I also wrote a separate article about that song over here.)

“Drive” is the most metallic-sounding track so far. Lou sings about the “pull of the machine” and “blood rushing to [her] head” with the bass getting more pressing at these words. Soon, the tension originates directly from her voice, with the other instruments simply mimicking it. JB’s voice only comes out to enjoin Lou to “drive”, yet this simplicity makes for a tranquilizing, hypnotic, persuasive call; the little voice in the back of Lou’s head, that she soon takes on by repeating the very same word, as if it had always sprung from within. The track sounds very industrial and futuristic, with machines all around, almost drowning out the vocals. The more active percussion adds to this feeling of impetus, of forward movement. Eventually, we alternate between the industrial, futuristic city, and the freedom associated with driving, finishing on the latter, while Lou repeats the same chorus again and again each time that JB’s voice resounds: the machinery has been set into motion.

Back to the world of dreams in “Pleurer et Chanter”, the granular percussion harking back to the sound effects of the last track and the tambourine of “Think Of Me”. The reversed, processed vocals taste like memories. Lou sings in French together with JB, her English accent a charm. Their voices are magnificent as ever, complementing each other perfectly. Emphasis is repeatedly placed on the most beautiful sound of the lyrics, also the final one : “un hoMMMMME”. A fatalistic digital ballad; a maverick’s view on society.

“So Long My Love” starts with a haunting voice, hypnotic percussion and bass, and metallic sounds. Lou’s voice is once again present, although this time with more of a talking tone. The lyrics seem a bit more pessimistic (“Too much love suffocates the soul”), as seems to be the use of echo on her voice, this time stressing hissing S’s or plosive consonants, with words like “dead” repeated over and over again like a glitch, in a somewhat repulsive fashion. The drawn-out reverb successfuly makes her voice ethereal in select passages, with the track nonetheless retaining its abrasive quality. The outro is stretched out, with Lou’s haunting voice slowly resurfacing. Soon, however, it’s difficult to tell which is which between her voice and the synth; and the vocoded “So long my love” at the end tops it all off, debasing the words with distance, otherness and maybe even monstrousness.

Return to normal with “Don’t Let Them Bring You Down”. There seems to be a subtle effect when Lou sings “talk to you” that emphasizes the percussive sound of the t’s. “There’s nobody on the line”, she sings, as the synth line comes in, endlessly changing pitch, trying to find its way. Other sounds start encroaching on the piano notes, creeping in and gradually taking up more space, while Lou sings “Don’t let them bring you down”. A beautiful track.

“Metropolis” features Lou’s voice, always controlled even when it reaches highs: she strains her voice at “the only thing that’s”, before taking her time on the ending “…left to say”; an exquisite attention to detail. The beauty of her voice resurfaces, almost as vibrantly as in the first tracks. Beauty can be found in her pronunciation of “colours”, “and you”, or the way she breaks down the word “today”, emphasizing and illuminating the sound and the beauty of the word itself, as a whole. I also like how she repeats “There is a way”, alternating between two notes, before ending the series singing the words on a new one, as if hinting at a way out. Her filtered voice at the end brings back the previously evoked idea of a futuristic world, and the pulsating bass line somewhat conjures up sirens of police vessels. An exciting landscape.

In “You Taste Sweeter”, emphasis is put for the first time on Lou’s intake of breath before she delivers her line. It fits curiously well with the aerial, breathing sounds in the background – the looping hi-hat for instance – so it most likely isn’t a coincidence. The words “You taste sweeter” wane very gently, as if sweetness to senses meant smoothness to changes. “Hold me” begins with a hint of sensuality, which might have to do with her intake of breath. The slowed-down version of her voice is disquieting, reminding us that voices, along with so many other things, are fundamentally bizarre, bearing meaning to us only because we’re accustomed to hearing them. Lou’s voice rising when she sings “sweeter” at the end almost turns the sensual into the sexual, while remaining sweet all the while. After she sings “yeah”, almost vocal synth notes come sparkling high up. The line “hold me” is possessive but ubiquitous, an essential part of our environment.

On to playfulness with “Catch Me”? It’s at least very clever to begin a song with such a title and an audio recording of a person running away. Lou’s slow, controlled enunciation gives more room for the syllables to resound. JB’s voice, long since unheard, takes on the role of the Grim Reaper and sings “Don’t try to run” as the two background notes suddenly reverse, as if we were now running backwards and towards the Reaper following us. At the end, we even have a sound snippet being played backwards during this same line, so it seems to be a motif. The many sounds overlapping one another (the squeaking, or moans, for instance) make us feel surrounded.

In “Life on Earth”, we break free from narrative coherence and the distinction between the roles of the two singers. Together, they sing the epilogue of the story, its detached moral. Words come in ones and twos, accentuating the glottal stop at the beginning of “Earth” and prone to sudden stops as well. Lou’s voice gets refreshingly more lyrical as she reaches high notes singing “life on Earth” at the end.

Surprisingly, we have the distinct feeling of being “inside” in “Inside”. As Lou says “my heart”, the overall instrumentation glitches out for just a fraction of a second, breaks down just like a fragile voice might. Copious vocal effects are applied to great use. I’ve already expressed my thoughts and feelings on this track in a previous article, so I won’t repeat myself here.

I hope that with this article you can better understand why Tomorrow’s World is so compelling to me, and why I keep coming back to it.

Lou and JB are a winning pair.

Read also my first impressions and second impressions on that album.