A hypnotic embodiment of styles and influences
La Faute’s musical style falls under the indie dream pop, alternative folk and singer/songwriter categories, allowing Messing to bend genres and formulate her own.
Citing artists such as Mitski, Lana Del Rey, Chet Baker and Massive Attack as musical influences, to name a few, Messing’s newest single ‘Blue Girl Nice Day’ is a hypnotic embodiment of all of these styles and influences. The track, inspired by the Milgram Experiments of the 60s, in which subjects were told to give ever-increasing electric shocks to a “learner” who had to repeat word pairs (“Blue/Girl Nice/Day Slow/Dance Sweet/Taste Soft/Hair Sharp/Needle Blunt/Arrow True/Story), weaves the tale of how easily we can betray and hurt each other.
The mainly acoustic three-minute-long track is both mesmerising and devastating, complete with the addition of momentous electric guitar elements and piano keys. The beating heart incorporated halfway through makes way for the crescendo of the song, reaching La Faute’s final, heavenly vocals, which are arresting throughout.
Peggy Messing (AKA La Faute) said of the track: “I wanted the music to sound deceptively sweet at first and then become more sinister and sad as it went along. The words from the experiment could be from a children’s book, they hardly say anything about the darkness and pain that went along with them. I loved the contrast of the simple, sweet words vs. the ruthlessness of the experiment.”
Messing spoke of the accompanying video: “When you’re sick you spend a lot of time in bed but your mind wanders and there’s a lot of time to think. For the video I made my bed outside, to refer to that time in my life. I was thinking about weakness, and how we take care of each other, or not. I shot the video myself and was happy that I was strong enough to lift the bed up the hill and set everything up. I thought it was funny though, I did actually still get tired and needed to rest, so it was handy to have a bed with me. I’ve learned a lot about weakness and strength and caring in the last few years of being ill. I flew solo on this one because I was enjoying controlling everything and learning about filmmaking. It felt kind of like a ritual, hopefully saying goodbye to the bed years, at least for a while.”
La Faute (the mistake, in French) is Messing’s dark, dreamy solo project. A visual artist, multi-instrumentalist and singer-songwriter originally from Winnipeg, Canada, she explores themes of surface vs. depth, longing, betrayal, mourning and desire. Using a 4 string tenor electric guitar and obsolete hardware samplers, she created her captivating live show and released her debut EP just before the pandemic. She has dealt with some chronic health problems which have required her to get creative to find workarounds, but when the pandemic started she chose to pause performing live to protect her health. She focused on the creation, and solutions to the problem of isolation. She connected with fellow artists and producers in France, the UK, Canada and the US to create music during this time, most recently with LA-based Topher Mohr who produced her upcoming album.
Messing is a former Girls Rock Camp Toronto volunteer, and found inspiration through helping girls get into music, offering them something that she wished had existed when she was growing up. She has had songs placed in several TV series, from her 2019 EP and through her former project, Dryer.
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