Pop supernova Låpsley takes Wonderland through her stunning new record, I’M A HURRICANE I’M A WOMAN IN LOVE, track-by-track.

Love, ay? We all feel it, think about it, and are hurt by it in one way or another. For 28-year-old British singer-songwriter Låpsley, the swirling, omniscient emotion lay at the crux of her fourth studio album, I’M A HURRICANE I’M A WOMAN IN LOVE. 

Newly independent, Låpsley shares the record via her own label Her Own Recordings, and there’s a sense of individuality and resilience flowing through the lovestruck collection of cuts. The rousing openness of its maker shines through across the 11-pronged work, tackling the full circumference of love, from jealous to pain, joy to excitement. It’s euphoric yet wistful, crowd-pleasing yet deftly intricate. Generally and genuinely, a meticulous crafted and free-flowing pop opus.

Dialoguing her overarching intentions for the record, she tells Wonderland, “This is an album about LOVE. It documents my relationship with two people over 2 years. I made the entire record with one of said two people, however the relationship ended halfway through the record but we continued to finish our work and I’m still with the other person to this day. In many ways, I think this is about the relationship I have with myself, and “love” as a complex and powerful emotion of many shades that only through indulging in its extremities, I’ve learnt and reflected so much about my identity as a self-professed big feelings gal, as well as the patriarchy and its impact on myself, the relationships I have with the people in my life and my perception of the future.”

Chronicling the meaning and making of the new album, Låpsley reveals all in our latest track-by-track.

Listen to the album…

Read the track-by-track…

“HURRICANE”

The love of a woman is in equal parts feared and revered by society. “I don’t push the boat out, I make storms”. I wanted to open the record with a statement. Unbridled, wild, deep and expansive love, sometimes dangerous, at your risk “but you follow the northern star”… and at a risk to the woman herself. Love for the sake of freedom “all I want is butterflies to fly through my chest”. Self-affirming and healing love “I’m a walk of shame, I’m not yours to blame”. Welcome to the world of the record. My music has shifted into a less electronic space, there’s a lot more guitar and live drums. It was heavily 80’s inspired. 

“WOMAN LIKE THAT”

It’s about my partner’s ex-wife. Someone who I’ve never met but has become this strange point of fascination. Comparing myself to, and ultimately being jealous of other women, has been the bane of myself and my fellow female friend’s lives. It’s the toxic internalised misogyny that creeps up on us and feeds our darkest insecurities. I simultaneously felt threatened by her beauty (from pics I had found on Facebook) and couldn’t understand how she could have hurt the person I love (it all ended pretty badly so I’m told). In Hamlet’s Ophelia, her obsession with a man becomes her downfall. I wanted to invert this idea and explore female obsession with other women (I identify as bisexual, but I’m focusing on the platonic feelings in this track), and the nuttiness it creates. But is it truly platonic? The lines are blurred. 

“JERICHO”

The studio can be a vulnerable space, this song was written in their studio in Cape Town when we were finishing the record in 2024 after we had split up. It’s about how difficult it is not to cross the line in such a sexually, emotionally charged and sacred space. “I want it bad, but I’m a good girl now”. There’s so many little references to the things I treasured most in that bubble we created. It’s very intimate and personal. A space that our love existed in multiple ways and although circumstances had changed, it was somehow preserved within the walls. 

“THE VISION”

A spoken word prelude to “CHURCH”. It is rare we hear spoken word in society, and poetry is a huge part of my private artistic life. I wanted to set up the space for CHURCH with something that placed the listener in a different mindset as I’m divulging away from romantic love for a moment.

“CHURCH”

I felt like I was sold a dream when I was a little girl that never amounted. I was told that I would grow up in a world of equal opportunity and I’ve felt perpetually let down by the realities of living within a patriarchy. I had the privilege of growing up in a safe, nurturing space where I was treated no different to my male brother and cousins. I think about if I had daughters and what I would say to them about the lack of change and the danger that so many women and girls face in their lives. There’s an element of apathy, I was trying to work out why it gave that impression and I think it’s a sense that it’s not a problem for women to fix, that would just be another thing to add to perpetual list. I’m using Church as a metaphor, although “I’m a Church with no steeple” is definitely a phallic joke. 

“BETTER”

If this song had a pinpoint location, it would be Church Street in Stoke Newington, where I first started dating my current partner. It’s a song about new beginnings, optimism and wanting to be “better” for the sake of this new relationship, including the relationship with myself. 

“SINCE YOU LEFT”

I was working in Stockholm, Sweden for a month. Both my partners were in different places in the world and I wanted to write an objectively cute song about missing someone far away. Keeping relationships alive through long distance is a big part of the story. I was influenced by the beats on Solange “Losing You” for this track.

“FEATHERWEIGHT CHAMPION OF THE WORLD”

My current partner said they loved me whilst I was slightly drunk and naked (I don’t like the feeling of clothes on my body, it’s weird) cooking dinner at 1am a few weeks into dating. I thought it would be a heavy thing to say back, I didn’t think I would have any additional love for another person, but it was the easiest and lightest thing to say. There’s references to the end of my partner’s previous marriage in the opening verse “you built a home and took it down, wood back to the trees”. On our second date they told me in the middle of a sea swim that they were married (and separated) “after her comes after burn, soothe it in the sea”.

“FORBURG”

I used to live for years in a little flat in Stamford Hill in Hackney, East London on Forburg Road. It was here that one of the relationships I talk about in this record unfolded. A producer friend of a few years, suddenly became a life-defining love, and this folk-inspired track in the lore.

“NORTH FACE”

The North Face of the mountain is notoriously the hardest, weather battered side to climb. “Hiking up the North Face, least we went there”. This is simultaneously a “i’m glad we did it despite the difficulties” and a “ffs why can’t we be together” story. This is the only song that holds anger… “but cupid ain’t that f***ing fair”. Love can be painful.

“LILAC HUES”

I was in a committed and closed relationship with two people at the same time. Ultimately, it felt unsustainable and I had to make a choice between the two. This was written in the midst of that decision. This idea of one side being red, the other blue, and existing in the lilac hues between. I quote the Durutti Column song title “Future Perfect” and use it as a statement to suggest that only one person can have and claim a future with me. To end the record on this note of uncertainty was important for me to show a shade of love that is often unspoken about. The complexity of loss that goes alongside. The difficult choices that we sometimes selfishly have to make for the sake of our own personal needs and idealised future.