Leila finds life in her twenties baffling
Fresh from Groenland Records comes the long-awaited debut album from mononymous pop star-in-waiting, Leila. The title, “20 Something is a fucking Strange Place”, might well mean that in some places, shops will wrap the record in brown paper bags to protect the innocent from bad words. However, such minor setbacks are unlikely to derail Leila’s rise to the top. Once a member of the popular Bernese indie combo Jeans for Jesus, Leila possesses a multi-facetted pop voice that sounds young and old, strong and vulnerable, provocative and intimate, all at the same time.
Born and raised in Berne, Leila Šurković describes herself as a “tomboy”, suffers from ADHS and regards her music as therapy. Her sound could be loosely described as indie with a hint of electro. She writes her lyrics in English to reflect her cross-cultural upbringing in Switzerland with a Bosnian father. She regards the pigeon that flies all over the cover of “20 Something…” as a symbol for how she perceives herself, “a bird that belongs nowhere but is everywhere” – in her case, New York, Sarajevo and Bern – “discovering three versions” of herself.
