OnlyL
TSHA’s *OnlyL* is an EP emerging from the confines of the coronavirus pandemic, with booming beats designed to ease listeners back to the dance floor after months of lockdown. But unlike her acclaimed 2020 EP, *Flowers*, an intentional curation, this collection was more of a happy accident. “The reason why the EP doesn’t have its own individual name is because it wasn’t necessarily supposed to be an EP,” the London producer/DJ tells Apple Music. “It’s not like a body of work where each song is related to each other.” If anything, its purpose is to set the scene for what’s to come: TSHA’s debut LP. “It’s more related to the album and the future, because that’s what I was working towards when I was writing,” she says. Every track here sits within its own sonic universe, each with a different origin story. The title track is straight-up electronic pop, while “Power” drips with twinkling club nostalgia, and “I Know” is a fraught, melodic tale. Here, TSHA takes us through each track. **“OnlyL” (feat. Nimmo)** “I actually had a different track that I wanted vocals for, and I contacted Nimmo because I really liked their sound. They had a ’80s/’90s feel to them—a bit like Eurythmics. They wrote vocals over this other track, but the voice and beat just didn’t go well together. I loved Nimmo’s vocals, so I rewrote a new track around them and chopped it up. The chopped vocals are what you hear in the chorus. I make beats ready so that I can always access stuff that I like quickly. So, I dragged a beat that I really wanted to use underneath and that just brought everything to life. Then I just built around Nimmo’s vocals and added a modular pattern that comes in as the second part of the drop. An organ sample that’s been chopped acts as the base.” **“Power”** “My music is good for certain times, but I didn’t really have club tracks. That’s where ‘Power’ was born. I’m just super excited to DJ now that the pandemic is easing and play it in a set. I sampled a 1982 Brit-funk song by \[early ’80s band\] Direct Drive in this track, and I don’t really know what inspired me to do that. I just decided to try out sampling because I’ve never really sampled like that before.” **“I Know”** “In this song, the phrase ‘I know’ could mean a lot of things. It could be about clarity, or it could reflect the hurt of realizing someone doesn’t really love you the way you thought they did. I wrote this when writing my 2019 EP, *Moonlight*. At the time of writing it, I sent it to people alongside lots of other tracks, and no one said anything about it, so I just assumed no one liked it. But it was my favorite track! Then, I sent it again when we were looking for a third track for this EP. And everyone was like, ‘Oh, this is great. This is brilliant.’ I was like, ‘You do realize I sent this to you, like, a year ago?’”