Vancouver singer-songwriter Jillian Lake has returned with a brand new single ahead of her upcoming album, called “Walk All Over You.” The single follows two releases from earlier this year in “Oliver” and “Bleed Baby Bleed.”
The emerging Vancouver artist released her debut EP Honey in 2018 and is now on the way to releasing her debut full-length early next year. This new group of songs has her working with fellow Vancouver artist and producer Jordan Klassen.
Jillian wrote “Walk All Over You” as a response to people who take advantage of others, after having been on the receiving end of it herself too many times. What she originally looked up to as unapologetic strength and determination, she realized was actually just selfishness and narcissism.
“I looked a little further and realized those weren’t qualities I wanted,” she says over the phone with Vancouver Weekly.
Instead of writing the song from her own viewpoint, she wrote from the perspective of the people who take advantage of others. It provided an outlet for her to figure out how someone in that position would think as they stomp all over whatever they want and take what they can from people.
It’s a tremendous collaboration between herself and Jordan. They were in the studio all the way back in early 2019. Jillian had around 40 songs in the works when they sat down together but they needed to find a main single for the album.
It was Jordan who set the foundation for “Walk All Over You” with a minimalistic instrumental guitar backtrack that he showed to Jillian. It was a bit out of Jillian’s comfort zone; it didn’t sound like something she would write and she found it hard to imagine what the song would become. However, it allowed her a new challenge to write something that didn’t naturally flow out of her.
The end result is clearly a success. Jordan’s a multi-instrumentalist and, when Jillian lent him her electric hollow body guitar, he was able to input the sounds of the guitar into a midi keyboard. That led to the tightly plucked string backbone of the song that comes off almost like a xylophone.
The song is pushed into very exciting territory with the chorus. The stern melody is propelled by a wonderfully satisfying vocal addition from Jordan. He made use of the midi keyboard again, this time inputting his own pitched-down vocals that pulse throughout the chorus to brilliant effect.
It was a smart call. Jillian says they felt something was missing from the song and it wasn’t until the mixing process that they added Jordan’s vocals. There are also these added breaths within the chorus that add a real primal feeling to the mix.
Things have definitely slowed down for everyone during the pandemic but Jillian considers herself lucky to have had the album fully recorded before it all began. While things got pushed back a bit, it allowed her more time to work on stuff behind the scenes and spend time with her family in Alberta.
She hasn’t released many details on her upcoming album, but she says we can expect it in mid-February along with a music video for “Walk All Over You.”
If the singles we’ve heard so far are any indication, it’s sure to be an impressive debut full-length from this Vancouver artist.
“Walk All Over You” is available on Apple and Spotify. Listen below.
