I have been addicted to LAYLA's EP Yellow Circles for a few weeks now. She popped up on my suggested artists on Spotify and now she's forever on repeat. However, I had a sort of deja vu feeling when I first heard her voice almost like i'd heard it before. This puzzled me so after much researching I discovered that LAYLA's real name is Jose Vanders, an artist whom I actually discovered almost 6 years ago. Her song Faces Going Places (below) was my favourite song for a very long time. It was so different to other songs at the time and really captivated my younger self. So naturally I was ecstatic to have rediscovered her now under the new artist name of LAYLA. Yellow Circles is a positive, fun and empowering track. It describes how you can find strength under the warm sun with the message being that the future is bright. 'With light comes life, so look up, look up'. I find the backing vocals really interesting throughout the song. They begin with slow 'ahs' and then progress to actually repeat LAYLA's lyrics back to her in the second verse. I believe this mimicking is extremely powerful as it is like the voices start to agree with her hopeful message and are proud to shout about it. This really exaggerates just how powerful this song is. LAYLA's voice is utterly beautiful. Her original tracks reminded me a lot of that of Kate Nash's but as of late she has really made her own stamp on the genre and has blossomed into a true individual. Smokestacks, LAYLA's most recent track, was Danielle Perry's Record of the Week on XFM and she has recently been played on Zane Lowe's Radio 1 show. I really encourage anyone and everyone to give LAYLA a listen. Her latest EP Black Mud was released in April so what are you waiting for, get listening!