Ilaye — Pneuma EP review.
Because to breathe is an act so easy, humans are of the habit of trivialising the sheer beauty of it. This notion is aided by the fact that the organs enabling it are beyond where they could be seen. For one to fully appreciate the beauty of breathing, one must first find it hard to do and then the importance and beauty of being able to suck in and release air becomes obvious.
This is what Pneuma, the newly-released EP by the singer Ilaye does to you when you listen to it. The beauty of the work doesn’t unravel on your auditory palate immediately you listen to the work, instead it settles in there, waiting for the right mood to trigger it before it begins to melt and seep into every nerve in your auditory canal.
It doesn’t help that the mellifluous voice Ilaye sings with remains in your head right after the first listen. What you experience after are a series of emotions, aided by the silence and the chilly air right at the place you are listening to the project, which can only be taken care of by another quick listening session of Pneuma.
This body of work is not suitable for outdoor consumption and this is due to its high propensity to suck you into its sometimes mostly solemn and melancholic state. Pneuma is as easy on the ears as breathing is for humans with working organs.
The work opens with “Barbecue”, a soft ballad that places you right in the middle of the entire EP’s experience of low-register vocals and purring chords by Ilaye and her composers. The singer takes you on a smooth journey into her life as a girl living in a small estate and dreaming of taking over the universe, her unnamed crush by her side.
Although, Ilaye fails to introduce her crush to the listener in a way that allows you to nab a proper identity beyond just “the boy that lived across on the other lane”, she makes up for this by symbolically passing on how the boy made her feel at the time — like a barbecue meal, roast chicken and beef.
On “Binoculars”, the lead single off Pneuma which first appeared in 2018, Ilaye sheds her cloak as the cute little girl fantasising about taking over the world with a boy to that of a woman spying on two love birds. Intrusive as her act may seem, she demonstrates an uncanny ability to self-check: While she acknowledges the lovers she’s seeing through the magnifying lenses of her binoculars, she is quick to warn herself that “I love to sightsee, but I’m not cut out for this, no o. The vision is blinding, I don’t want to wake up from this dream. I don’t want to wake up from this dream.”
“Metaphors”, the third track on the EP was first released earlier this year. Ilaye’s first statement on the song, which comes after a cloudy din of instrumentation, is a literal metaphor that ushers you into her feelings which you’d soon find out was rather ambivalent because this love that seems so close to her is likely absent-minded and faraway.
“Love is a subway train, and I’m a late night traveller. I see you from the corner of my eyes, you look like you’ve been running all your life,” Ilaye warbles before moving forwards to reveal other metaphors.
With “Dearest Friend”, Ilaye manages to bump up the pace of the music with a thumping kick, which equally jacks up the mood as well. But the number does not distinctly have a different theme from “Metaphors”, except this time, the singer makes her doubt clear.
The EP Pneuma is a beautiful collection of love ballads and there’s a noticeable level of consistency in the project which ties to its cohesiveness, especially in its supply of content. You can listen to the project without feeling burnt out. “Moonhead” is a ballad of caution on how to deal with Ilaye; all she does is try to grow into love and when it’s all said and done, this singer with her head “in the moon”, crooning beautiful music, will eventually break your heart even if she wanted to be near to you.
“Did no one ever tell you not to trust a girl with her head in the moon?”
Ilaye gives Pneuma a befitting end with “On This Side of Forlorn”, where she admits to feeling caught on a lonely side. This is her story, her confession. She’s finished dragging her lovers through her changing emotions and now, she’s all alone, dealing with the cold on this side of forlorn, the kind of cold thick blankets can’t sort.
Pneuma creates a kind of feeling in you when you listen, especially when you find joy in being at conflict with your willingness to love and come out of love. But that is not the most striking thing about the project. Ilaye, who is affiliated with Nigeria’s biggest music community “WeTalkSound” serves a complete offering of songwriting which she delivers in a teasing manner.
Sometimes, she rides her vocals low and then she teases as if to climb and then she drops again. This style makes her exciting to listen to due to the spontaneity in the delivery: you can’t always be sure when she’d go that route. Besides her enunciation, which makes it a bit easier for her lyrics to pass over the listener’s head, everything else shines on Pneuma. The EP is a high bar she must surpass in her subsequent projects — which shouldn’t be hard, considering how incredibly talented Ilaye is.
Listen to Ilaye Pneuma EP below: