London based artist, Leyla Diamondi, has a new single out; My Soul Cries, and we’ve been taking many many listens here at the Send Me Your Ears studio to this beautiful soulful pop ballad.
There’s a “realness” to My Soul Cries. The vocal has that raw and fragile quality to it that reminded us of the time Adele recorded “Rolling In The Deep” as a demo and insisted that the vocals were not messed with or re-recorded. You get that same quality in Diamondi’s latest track, My Soul Cries, and we’re thoroughly impressed here.
My Soul Cries is a very simple piano based song that just oozes talent. This was our first introduction to Leyla Diamondi, and we’re lifelong fans.
Aside from the warm and well played piano playing, there’s a fun use of synth strings that pans from side to side and really helps to keep you enthralled throughout. Towards the end of the song a heartbeat like kick and bass are added. The dynamics in this track are truly spectacular.
For us, and most likely for 99% of listeners to this song, it’s the voice that does it. A fragile and breathy performance which somehow manages to convey both vulnerability and confidence at the same time.
Diamondi’s vocal techniques here are quality. Great use of twang, belt, head voice and the occasional creak make for a thrilling and magical ride. The powerful notes in particular reminded us of Etta James/ Joss Stone/ Adele. The gentle head voice notes reminded us of Katie Noonan or Tori Amos. These vocals really are extremely versatile and utterly endearing throughout.
From a production perspective, we’d suggest a high pass filter at 40Hz to take out some of the rumble in the low end of the track that most speakers can’t handle. Consider trying a tiny dip around 11kHz and a tiny but wide boost centred around 8kHz. This will make that glorious breathiness in the vocal come through even more.
Diamondi is very clearly a supremely talented singer with an exciting future ahead of her. Our only criticism of this track is that we wished it was longer! Just a stunning piece of work.