Memphis artist Don Lifted has signed to Fat Possum Records and shared a new single called “Lost in Orion”. It’s his first new music since 2019, and it’s a fascinating blend of genres that feels both fresh and familiar.
As Don Lifted, songwriter born Lawrence Matthews has been putting out music since 2013. According to his Bandcamp, he dropped three volumes of The December LP series within a one-year-period, and then he followed those with two other albums that are currently on streaming services, 2016’s Alero and 2018’s Contour.
Although the former of those two albums predated Frank Ocean’s 2016 opus by a month, Matthews is planted firmly within the Blond(e) school of music. Contour and the handful of singles he released that same year meld together elements of indie rock with bumping bass, dreamy croons, and occasional rap verses. The moods are somber and intimate, but there’s a springiness to the songwriting and a catchiness in Matthews’ delivery that keeps locked into the foreground.
After taking a couple years to refocus his creative priorities, Matthews is back with new material and “Lost in Orion” is his first offering. The track is its own thing entirely, but it definitely recalls Frank Ocean’s “Nikes” in that it’s a reverb-soaked indie song with a muted yet bass-heavy hip-hop beat beneath it.
The instrumentation is gorgeous, the production is terrifically punchy, and Matthews has a smattering of vocal deliveries that all work really well with the surrounding music. Take a listen below.
Matthews is choosing to be stay cryptic about the rest of his year, but it seems likely that we’ll be hearing more from Don Lifted throughout 2021. In the meantime, revisit all of his previous work on Bandcamp, specifically that album Contour. It’s a whole vibe.
