LO. explores the dissociation of the pandemic on “Come Around"

Art by @jane.q.public, posted with permission from LO.

By Lily Hartenstein 

Lyla Neely (she/her) and Oliver Cho (they/them) are the perfect complimentary duo, evident through their music project LO. and the charming nature of their friendship. Both hailing from the Bay Area, the two competed against each other in their high school a cappella groups before meeting at the Berklee Valencia campus. The destiny of that partnership was apparent from the moment Cho complimented Neely’s Spiderman backpack in line at registration. They began playing at bars in Spain together, switching vocals and guitar and Cho showing off their beatboxing prowess. 

“The more we played together, the more we were like ‘Oh, this could be a thing that we do in the long run.’ It's really fun and it works really well. Our ideas complement each other and our writing styles complement each other, and it just worked out,” Neely said.

Neely is the vibrant extrovert with purple hair and a killer stage presence. She’s the lead vocalist and lyricist and the group’s marketing manager. Meanwhile, Cho thrives behind the scenes, the production genius who also plays guitar and handles licensing. I’ve had the pleasure of knowing the two of them, equally as a friend and a fan, for a couple of years now, and from making breakfast scrambles in their Boston apartment to dancing in basements at their shows, getting to experience the incredible energy their combination gives is always a treat. That’s why I was especially excited to talk to them about their first single, a soothing track titled “Come Around”, released April 20. It’s a pandemic project through and through, from the creative process behind the track to the lyrical content.

“This project really happened in a series of bedrooms,” Cho said. From Boston, they sent Neely a demo of the track and asked her to finish it, while she was with her family in California.

“I set up a little studio space in my closet at home, and I soundproofed it as best as I could with like blankets and pillows and shit,” Neely laughed, “I actually bought a sound barrier mic .. from Guitar Center in California just to use in my closet, and then returned it back to Guitar Center.”

“I think it’s ironic that you recorded in your closet,” Cho joked. The exploration of queer identity is embedded within much of Neely’s expressive lyricism, and back when live shows existed, the duo’s performances were explicitly safe spaces for the local LGBTQ+ community. 

In “Come Around”, this is touched on through references to Neely and Cho’s relationships, and how they were impacted in the pandemic. “It’s about dissociating in the midst of quarantine, and us navigating relationships and breakups and friendships and releasing music in quarantine… it involves all that, and the feeling of dissociating,” Cho said, “I feel like anyone who has experienced dissociation can find a place to resonate in the song, because that was a big part of our shared quarantine experience living together.”

Beyond dissociation, both artists addressed how their approach to making music was altered by isolation, and how it ultimately pushed them in a more DIY direction. 

“It’s changed my perception of what’s possible,” Cho said, “because I was like ‘Dang, I’m never going to release songs if I don’t track these vocals in a studio’, but like no, Lyla tracked her vocals in her closet—”

 “And they sound fucking fire,” Neely added.

“And they sound fire! I think it’s opened the doors for me. It’s made me less hesitant to put things I create into the world, and accept that they're good enough, because I wasn’t going to wait until two years to be able to go into the studio and record.”

“I felt the exact same way,” Neely added, “When quarantine started, I used it as an excuse like ‘Oh, I’m not going to make music while this is happening because what am I going to do with it’, you know? But after being in it so long, it came to the point like, life goes on. And if anything, people need this music, and we need this music more than anything right now. You just kind of realize that even though everything feels like it's on hiatus and you have to be on that hiatus too, it’s not. People still feel things and are affected by music that has a lot of meaning, and if we make stuff like that right now, it's actually important. It’s not something that we need to wait until everything is good, because that’s when people aren’t going to be as affected by it.”

The duo plans to release a full-length album before 2021 ends. In the meanwhile, they’re working on releasing some solo songs Neely wrote and doing more livestream shows (like the one they did with WECB Live! in January). They especially emphasized their love of collaboration: “We love being in touch with other queer, non-cis creators and people of color, and want to be working on projects with other people too, as songwriters and producers. Lyla is an amazing songwriter, and I love producing,” Cho said. “We’re looking to work with other people. I would hope that if folks get anything out of this, from us being fully independent artists: it’s okay to ask help. We’re here to help, and support folks who also just like making music.”

You can find “Come Around” on Spotify and find updates on LO. through their Instagram.