The Last Dinner Party’s L.Mayland tells us about getting personal on their debut solo EP ‘The Slow Fire Of Sleep’

The Last Dinner Party‘s L.Mayland has told Rolling Stone UK about going it alone for their debut solo EP The Slow Fire Of Sleep and the personal themes that inspired the project.

Released today (May 9), the project was recorded during a period of downtime for the band and sees Mayland team up with Imogen & The Knife and Will Lister. Mayland has previously explained how the likes of Nick Drake, Brian Eno and Adrianne Lenker have all influenced their work – resulting in a sound that flits between ambient noise and their personal reflections on how life has changed since The Last Dinner Party became a chart-topping band.

“One of the main points is that we’re 5 individual people [in The Last Dinner Party] and it feels like we’re walking the line of being in the band but also being like ‘oh yeah, I am an individual person and a musician with my own artistic presence which I feel very excited about and grateful for’,” explained Mayland.

They added: “So doing this EP for the first time was super empowering. I’ve felt like a proper musician for the first time, in the sense of having this creative project that I’ve seen through from the beginning to the end and followed my own tastes and stuff.”

As for those own tastes, the haunting ‘Homeward’, sees Mayland reflects on their love of nature after growing up in the Yorkshire countryside and the struggle to find beauty while on tour.

“I grew up in the countryside and suddenly for a year straight I was going between concrete rooms, tour buses and motorway services. Suddenly I had a moment where I was trying to write some poetry in my hotel room and I was like, ‘Oh, there is nothing beautiful here, there’s nothing to feed off’. It felt grey and I missed home, so it’s a love letter to Yorkshire and, the countryside I grew up in and how I never feel alone when I’m in nature on my own, because I’m surrounded by it and I’m made insignificant by it.”

But at the same time, Mayland says, the opportunity to visit art galleries in cities around the world proves quite the respite. A recent stop-off in Chicago allowed them to see Nighthawks – the musician’s favourite ever artwork.”

“I rushed to the Art Institute Of Chicago before we went back to the airport and I literally sat there and cried for 40 minutes,” Mayland recalls.

“There was no one else in the room and it was incredibly powerful for me. It was like seeing a family member, so I’m incredibly grateful to have those experiences on tour.”

Elsewhere, there’s reflections on falling in love on the folk-flecked ‘From The Other Side Of The World I’d Hear You’, while the title track reflects “absolute hopelessness, in the face of, like, the evil that is governing the world.”

And on ‘Mother Mother’, the musician – who identifies as non-binary – uses a folk song to disarm listeners as they explore their own relationship with gender identity.

“I hope it can be a part of a long history of people using art to kind of talk about gender queerness and queerness and the patriarchy and the fact you don’t just have to be a woman,” they explain.

“There’s not one kind of womanhood and so I hope it resonates with people and that people can feel like they’re not wrong if they have those similar feelings, because that’s where it came from for me. This idea of modelled femininity being nurturing and motherly, when I don’t feel that way. I’d like people to understand that it’s not you that is wrong, it’s the structures of the world.”

And while The Last Dinner Party are going nowhere, with their second album very much on the horizon, Mayland says they are just grateful to explore this music – and themes close to their heart – before that machine properly rumbles into action again.

“I remember when we released ‘Nothing Matters’ and people began listening to it. It didn’t feel real, we did a gig and people were embracing that song. I wanted to give myself the chance to really have that feeling of this is what it means to put music out and show off these vulnerable feelings. It’s important I push myself, even if it can be quite intimidating…”