New Music Review - ‘Juno’ the EP by Bayleaf
The very serene cover art for Bayleaf’s debut EP which is out October 1st! Fun fact about the art: this came about when Baily blended photos of Mars and Jupiter together. The name Juno came from the Nasa space probe which was sent to take photos of Jupiter in 2015! Creative AND fun.
Sit down and buckle in for this newest release, popping off on Friday, 1st October. This is the debut EP entitled Juno, by Baily Lelieveld and friends which is described as an audio collaborative project with features from Cheena Rae (sax), Kevin Fernando (electric guitar), Liam Wahrlich (bass) and George Davenport (vocals, guitar) - a whole stack of wildly talented, wonderful people.
You may recognise Baily’s voice as being one of the highly gifted singers from The Raddlers in which you would be correct. This time, Baily has branched out and decided to release this EP under stage name Bayleaf and there is nothing more outstanding than this appealing new 5-track memorable launch. Juno is an EP that would be great to listen to live in a smaller setting as it feels personal and intimate to the listener, which I believe, may be the aim. Produced entirely by Baily himself, the entirety is filled with special moments, creative new sounds and many purposefully picked instruments.
Bayleaf sets the tone with the opener, Loops - Baily’s vocals don’t come in until about 48 seconds which tends to compliment this first song and sets the suspense even greater on our dials so you are completely unaware of what is to come next and I like that type of feeling personally. This EP has a surprise around every corner, making it fresh and unpredictable. Baily (and friends) always manage to keep you listening with the way everything just flows like you’re on a gondola in the rivers of Italy - a relaxing experience, indeed.
Lose My Mind is one of The Raddlers classics, first being released in December 2018 and is a hit with the crowd when it is performed live and I can tell you, this cover is tenfold. Lose My Mind is an enchanting, wonderful piece of work that captures your soul in one single track. This version of the song is more raw cut than the original, it feels very stripped back and it’s almost a slightly different dynamic, but at the same time it still has a mildly true feel of The Raddlers version with it, making it a lovely, easy listening tribute.
As with any of Baily’s projects, nothing is ever the same as you’d think and this is true when listening to Roadside, because on this soothing 3rd song, you may recognise that it is not Baily that is singing primarily. It is, in fact, his good friend and flatmate, George Davenport who is also full of beautiful singing abilities, just like his mate. It’s a great move to have a different singer on some tracks, it mixes things up a little and ensures that Juno is completely unique. A great move for other musicians to follow sometimes to change it up and make it even more fun. The song is a little more mellow than the others, however, the theme is about someone that may be in your line of sight who has captured you under their spell, if you will. At the same time, it’s a big secret and it’s hard to tell whether you’re too busy to figure things out because you’re busy thinking of yourself, so you almost will never know the outcome due to this, unless you take the leap of faith and admit your feelings to this person. “Nobody knows the way I feel about you now, ain’t that special?” It is. It certainly is.
If you listen to The LAB Music Show on a Tuesday afternoon where Baily and his good friend/bandmate, Liam Wahrlich host their own podcast/radio show, you will recognise some of Waves, which is the fourth track on Juno, as it is actually the intro song for the show. Waves has an epically fun vibe with the music that goes with the lyrics which touches on a bit of a more serious topic. Waves starts with what could be a synth beat bringing the song up from the ground and gradually getting louder over time. Baily sings about mental health in this track and has poured some valid points into the tune such as looking out for your mates and recognising that it helps sometimes when you sit in a car and talk about things with them. Waves is one that we all could take some good advice from and by bringing light to the mental health movement, this sparks those harder to have conversations with mates. We need more honesty regarding this and I applaud Bayleaf for opening this door.
The Scientist is the closer of the EP and I think that it is for the best if you listen to every track in the order it was intended to be listened to. No, The Scientist is not bad in any way, it is the total opposite. Stack up on the tissues because you may have the rain falling out of your eyes when this one hits your ears, so lock yourself away and soak up all of the incredibleness this one has to offer. This has to be one the greatest and most unique covers of Coldplay’s that I have ever heard, Baily does each second of the track such justice that upon first hearing it, I could’ve fallen off the chair, it’s honestly that powerful. Hopefully one day, Coldplay will hear it and think it is as wonderful as I do. Give it a listen for yourself on Friday and determine what your thoughts are on it.
Honestly, for this entire EP, I would need to give it a 200/10 because it has genuinely blown me away from the first time I gave it a listen. Bayleaf (or Baily and friends) have done an absolutely miraculous job of creating and producing Juno and with more tracks on the way soon, there are no breaks for these friends and their love of creating and vibing.
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You can follow Bayleaf below and remember to chuck them a follow on Spotify once the EP is released on Friday -
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You can contact me via Instagram for New Zealand musician interviews, reviews, features or via email. At this stage, I do not have capacity to do any international artist write-ups, unfortunately. If my capacity reduces at any point, this will be posted on the social media channels for Welcome to the Gig.