LAKE excel at composing songs that sound familiar but feel entirely modern and new. Their latest record, The World is Real, shows that the band knows how to take classic/soft rock tropes and restructure them into something beautifully strange. Part of this is undeniably due to the synergistic songwriting of Ashley Eriksson and Eli Moore, but “Takin’ My Time” proves that the other members of LAKE are equally adept at syncing into a unified musical vision.
“Takin’ My Time” is the first LAKE track to be written and sung by Mark Morrison, but in the context of The World is Real, it fits the album’s modernized, stripped-down Steely Dan aesthetic so well it’s hardly noticeable. LAKE have always immersed themselves in particular styles/songs, and “Takin’ My Time’s” John Farinelli-directed video articulates this well, as the film’s protagonist — former LAKE member Lindsay Schief — gets literally sucked into the videotape that’s given to her. But while the video’s movie-within-a-movie narrative is a visual representation of LAKE’s ability to emulate the artists who influence them, they always manage to update their sources. And when the protagonist becomes stranded in VHS land at the video’s conclusion, I can’t help but see the parallels between her new imprint on the VHS world and LAKE’s imprint on indie pop.
The World is Real is out now via K Records. You can watch the video for “Takin’ My Time” below:
• LAKE: http://www.laketheband.com
• K Records: http://krecs.com
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