Artist and designer Kathleen Warner, who performs under the moniker Lyrah, breathes new life into a classic on her irresistible new track “Everywhere”–track eleven on HIGH FREQUENCY Volume 2. Written by the late Christine MvCie and originally released in 1987 on Fleetwood Mac’s 14th studio album Tango in the Night, “Everywhere” lends itself perfectly to Lyrah’s dance-focused sound and show stopping vocals.
Drenched in reverb, adding an otherworldly, cavernous quality to the immediately recognizable 80s’ synth intro, Lyrah’s topline dances across a lush chord progression and the pulse of a heavy kick drum while angelic harmonies fill the track with celestial choir of her own making.
Prompted by a request to cut vocals for a version of the song a friend’s label was planning to release, Lyrah recorded the vocals while in London this summer. After learning the label had gone in a different direction, Lyrah found herself returning to the song’s potential. “Anytime I was on the train commuting to sessions in London I was working on it and on the flight home. I didn't know if I'd put it out, I just wanted to see it through and make the version of the song that I heard in my head. The immediate thing was different chords. And because my background's piano, that's what I normally start with. The chords shape the world of the emotion, and I wanted to hear a little bit darker of a twist on it. Then I was like, “I love the song. I should probably put it out.”
Now back in Los Angeles, Lyrah tells me about her musical upbringing while surrounded by
family heirlooms like her childhood piano and her grandmother’s “therapist couch” in her home studio in Los Feliz.
She begins by recounting starting piano lessons so young (age three) that her dad had to convince the teacher to take her as a student by pitching father-daughter lessons. “I eventually surpassed him, and then he just focused on making me better,” says Lyrah. “It shaped my brain, it's like learning another language. Piano was one of the first things in my life, it feels like so much of who I am.”
She practiced obsessively and as her skills developed, she discovered a love and talent for singing, too. “I sang at school masses, church on the weekend, at weddings and funerals, I sang at everything–nursing homes, skateparks.”
Hoping to continue her vocal education, she began studying opera at age 12. “There weren't many vocal coaches in my town, and I wanted a voice teacher, and that’s what they specialized in. I have an appreciation for classical music, but it’s not like I wanted to sing opera. Then I got stuck, and I could only sing that way,” says Lyrah. “I was a little kid confused about her voice because all my vocal muscles were strengthened to be this head, resonant type voice, and I didn't know how to sing anything that sounded more natural. Then I had to refigure out my voice in high school, because it was really bothering me.”
While continuing her more conservative musical endeavors as the pianist for her Catholic high school’s choir, Lyrah also started a band and began transcribing pop songs on her piano and writing her own songs. “The sound I landed on comes from wanting to be different from the sound I did growing up. There was always so much pressure on that type of music, it was very stiff performing. And it often wasn't for me. Like we'd be at a restaurant, and if there was a piano, my dad would be like, “Get up and play us a song.” I'd always be embarrassed. And I was a little perfectionist, so I’d excuse myself to the bathroom to warm up my voice. It was a whole ordeal. I couldn't just relax and be at dinner. I’d always be ready to perform,” says Lyrah.
Feeling hemmed in by her classical training and her hometown of Johnstown, Pennsylvania–a city with a population of 18,000–she set her sights on a big state school for university as a way to expand her horizons. “It was a great experience growing up in Johnston, but I wanted so much more.”
Accepted to the honors college at Penn State and awarded a scholarship, she enrolled as a bio major on pre-med track. “I was soul searching what I wanted to do with life, never thinking it was music, because I didn't think that was practical. But at that same time, I started meeting people that were making electronic music.”
Discovering the electronic scene in college ignited her creativity and sense of self. “Making dance music is the funnest music that I could possibly make. Singing at church versus at a basement party passing tequila shots? I was like, “This is the music I want to make.”
Starting to cut vocals for electronic producers and writing toplines, she eventually got plugged in with Axtone Records, Swedish House Mafia DJ/Producer Axwell’s label. “They would send me demos, I’d write vocals, and send it back. I never knew what artists it was for, and no amazing cuts came out of it, but it was great practice.”
Having embedded herself in the local music scene, she began to notice a need for connections between venues and musicians, which ultimately peaked her interest in tech as well. “I wasn't a tech person at all, but I wanted to make a site that would connect artists, musicians, and venues and let people have a place to play wherever or whenever,” says Lyrah. “Because of diving into that world, I started meeting people on campus that were building startups. I just wanted to learn as much as possible, so I was helping them with things like marketing.”
After initially focusing on front end development, she kept gravitating towards product design. “At that point Figma didn't exist, so I was using Photoshop, devouring YouTube tutorials, trying to recreate apps. That was the thing that I loved outside of music was design. And then I taught design classes in college.”
Upon graduating, she moved to the Bay Area for a product design role at a startup and eventually landed at Facebook. “It was a business decision to fuel the passion,” says Lyrah about working for the tech giant. “I'd go home from work, work on music, wake up and do it all over again. I was sitting on all these demos, and I was trying to figure out my sound within it. Then I created Lyrah as a project.”
Needing to create a boundary between her work persona and her musical endeavors, she created the moniker Lyrah to alleviate some of the pressure she’d been putting on her music. “I created the different name because I wanted the separation. As you can tell from my upbringing, I'm a perfectionist and a people pleaser. It felt too personal to put out music as myself. And I never felt that the songs were perfect enough to put out. Now I would feel fine if I had to put out a project under my name, but at that time I couldn't do it.”
Pushing past the fear, she released her first song “Don’t Make Me,” in 2018. “I was physically sick to my stomach,” says Lyrah. “But people are nicer than you think they'll be as you build them up in your head as critics. Which is a lesson that I just have to keep relearning. And now I’m pretty detached from being crippled by what people think of something.”
Soon after, Axwell (Swedish House Mafia) added the track to his playlist “Weekend Weapons” offering full-circle affirmation that she was in fact, on the right track.
As she gained confidence and built momentum with her music, she planned to quit her job at Facebook in 2020 to pursue music full-time. The pandemic threw a wrench in her plans and she stayed for two more years during which she relocated to Los Angeles in order to be closer to more music opportunities.
By early 2022, she had made her mind up to take the jump before life threw a halting curve ball. “You wait your whole life to do music full time, then the day before my last day, we learned my brother had cancer. Immediately I'm not even thinking about music because it didn't make sense anymore. For those first few months, music was only coping, and I had no idea how to make anything more of it,” says Lyrah. “I was so depressed, I wasn't excited to post on the internet.”
Unsure if she wanted to continue pursuing music professionally, Lyrah came close to calling it quits before another unforeseen event shifted her trajectory–this time, a sign of encouragement. ““In The Leaves” came out, and that was the first song that changed things,” says Lyrah. The emotional and riveting track released in 2022 now has more than 4 million streams on Spotify.
While “In The Leaves” garnered attention, Lyrah’s early adoption of web3 began to prove fruitful as well. After helping out with design for an early Grimes’ drop and being the sole product designer of the Record Deal Simulator for the CreateSafe team, Lyrah began researching music NFTs. Inspired by indie acts like Verite who began utilizing the technology, Lyrah started experimenting with her own drops on foundation and later joined Sound where she has 217 collectors. Her recent collaboration with Daniel Allan, “I Just Need” provided a standout moment with the song picking up traction on Tiktok and Spotify in addition to selling out on Sound. Lyrah is currently working on a stripped version of “I Just Need” as well as her forthcoming EP.
With her brother now in remission and her music journey flourishing, Lyrah is more motivated than ever. “Feeling like you could be close to giving up, like everything in life is piling on you–I feel the complete opposite now. And I think only because I felt that contrasting way before, I'm now throwing everything at this. The biggest mental shift that I've had is I feel like I deserve success. And I didn't really feel that way before.”
Collect Music NFTs from HIGH FREQUENCY Volume 2. “Everywhere” is the eleventh track to be released from HIGH FREQUENCY Volume 2. “Everywhere” is dropping via Sound at 2pm PST on December 19 2023
Collect and add HIGH FREQUENCY writing NFTs to your digital library.
Article by Wallace Morgan for HIGH FREQUENCY, NOISE’s weekly newsletter. Subscribe for more.