Kaia Laurielle drops stripped back version of ‘Love Me or Leave Me’ taken from her new EP.

If you haven’t heard of Kaia Laurielle yet ‘Love Me or Leave Me’ is the perfect place to be introduced. Kaia is the South East London songstress not afraid of blending genres. Vocally she sounds like traditional R&B but she has a penchant for vocalling beats with more Electronic influences. This is no surprise when her musical influences are the likes of James Blake, Nina Simone and Lauryn Hill – none of which were afraid of taking risks musically. In that same vein, Kaia appears to be a fellow risk taker and luckily with her strong vocal presence she makes it work.

On ‘Love Me or Leave Me’ we don’t get this side of Kaia however, at least not on this updated version. The track was originally released as one of four tracks on her Waiting Room EP which came out in August which displays the genre blending a bit more than in this stripped version. This stripped back version amps up the use of piano whilst pulling back quite a bit on the percussive elements which only serves to highlight her vocal ability. With the vocals standing alone we get to truly appreciate the depth of her tone as well as the lyrics in a way you may have overlooked on the original.

Visually is where I’d have my only real criticism which is that I think the visual could have been more exciting or varied the setting or even outfit. But considering coronavirus that’s a small criticism and one that we can overlook. Besides that, the visuals are clean and simple and compliment the track quite well without distracting away from it.

You can stream the original version of ‘Love Me or Leave Me’ and the Waiting Room EP here.