Laura von Mari Chooses to Tell Her Stories "Forevermore" in New EP
Laura von Mari, real name Laura Shapiro, doesn’t take herself too seriously. With her degree in popular music from Goldsmiths College in London and experience working with Grammy winning producers, you might expect an artist more uptight and traditional. However, her first EP, Forevermore, released September 8th proves otherwise with her self-proclaimed “gay and colorful” vibes.
Von Mari’s father was a classical piano teacher growing up, so this Boston-born artist was always making some type of music. She practiced using songs that her dad taught in his lessons, along with other icons’ music, such as The Beatles. Around age 14, she made the decision to begin telling her own stories through music.
“I could tell stories outside of my identity, but I choose to tell my own,” von Mari says. As a queer person, she feels it is important to put her perspective out into the world. In this EP, the artist finds herself portraying many different toxic or volatile relationships she’s had with other women in her life, both romantic partners and not.
“I could tell stories outside of my identity, but i choose to tell my own.”
Sometimes, von Mari takes snippets of friend’s stories and molds them into her music, even going back to her college days for inspiration. “Everyone [at Goldsmiths] felt the same about music as I did, but for their own host of reasons,” von Mari says. “There was this painter in my course who only wrote songs about his paintings.” Getting the chance to workshop and experiment in this entirely new environment with such a variety of other musicians really helped to fine-tune her own craft.
The artist’s new EP is a culmination of her work up until this point. Von Mari confesses to having her own vault—a la Taylor Swift—of songs piled up, all “slowly being worked through [my] process” before being released. After working to find her own authentic voice for some time, the five songs on this EP have been specially curated as the strongest and most cohesive of her collection.
“Forevermore,” the title track, became so due to having “a little bit of everything” in it. Reminiscent of Y2K pop, she sings over a dreamy beat about an older female role model who ended up letting her down. She reckons with that and thus begins the narrative line through all these songs: taking control of certain aspects of her life again.
“Fuck You” does this in perhaps the most decisive way of the bunch. When hearing her own song’s title spoken back to her, she couldn’t keep a chuckle from escaping. “Throughout all my interviews for [Forevermore], no one has really asked about that song yet. I think they’re maybe scared to say the title back to me.” Being so excited to get this single out, von Mari crafted a middle finger to one of her ex’s who was, in her words, “a mess” via the song. She describes the song not as an act of hate, but as one of relief after all this time. The song certainly emotes that feeling. While punchy and provocative, the tune is almost carefree, as von Mari finally releases years of pent-up frustration.
The last track on the EP, “Fog,” is very head-y, starting off with limited instrumentals, allowing for von Mari’s clear vocals to shine through. Being her current favorite song off the album, it feels like a summer-y, almost yacht-rock tune. However, the lyrics are all about running away from your identity and the freshness of the narrator’s relationship frightening them. While the emotions feel quintessentially queer—something many in her audience can relate to—the inspiration was actually an old movie that the artist now can’t recall the name of. This whole collection of songs does an excellent job at connecting with that audience, throwing them back into a nostalgia for similar experiences. “Fog” feels like an appropriate closer for the EP, as it leaves the listener with dreams of hot summer nights and lost love.
“The combination of music and lyrics has always felt like a sort of spiritual healing,” says von Mari. Music has always been a part of the artist’s life, but being in the public eye is a new thing entirely. That feeling is reflected in her sound, joining a variety of new indie pop singers who are coming out and writing songs about their tumultuous—and oftentimes also queer—teen experiences. This EP is a perfect example of that, and if you’re a fan of artists like Baby Queen or Orla Gartland, von Mari’s music is probably for you. Check Laura out via Instagram, Spotify, and Linktree to keep up with her music and listen to Forevermore.