The Welsh producer, singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Novo Amor is known as Ali Lacey in real life. His house in Cardiff is also partly his studio, and you can hear it: the distant chatter of parties across the street, the fireworks on Bonfire Night, and even the seagulls that congregate on the building site next door seep onto his recordings.

Lacey began Novo Amor as an act of defiance in the wake of a break-up, but along the way he unexpectedly discovered something rich and rewarding. Years ago, a summer spent by an evergreen-encompassed lake in upstate New York provided the impetus for creating his debut album Birthplace (2018).

In the wake of the release of Cannot Be, Whatsoever, Lacey ponders a past soundtracked by songs of quiet hope and longing: “I can still see the lake upstate when I picture ‘Birthplace’, the songs sheltered by this place I’ve romanticised that doesn’t actually exist anymore. These new songs feel immediate and noisy in comparison, almost optimistic. If ‘Birthplace’ is the countryside, then ‘Cannot Be, Whatsoever’ is the city.”

© Daria Miasoedova (pictures)