Andie Loui. That name got me thinking. Firstly of Jona Lewie, the English singer-songwriter of novelty songs best known for his 1980 UK hits ‘You’ll Always Find Me in the Kitchen at Parties’ and ‘Stop the Cavalry’.
And then my mind wandered even further to when I was a small child and was kept entertained by a TV puppet show called Andy Pandy, which also featured a character called Looby Lou. Andy Loo, get it?
But back to reality and to an artist whose PR company compared to early Highasakite. For a short period in the mid 2010s they were my favourite band but then they broke up with three musicians going their own way (one of whose new album will be reviewed in the next few weeks) and while they’ve produced some very good work since it hasn’t always been up to the standard of their initial albums.
So I’m always attracted to anyone that can take me back to those days with their own material and as a bonus I read that one of those musos, guitarist Kristoffer Lo, also appears along with Tuva Halse, whom we featured last October, on Andie Loui’s debut album ‘Another Bad Idea’, which will be released on 6th February.
There have been a few singles from it already, including the title track and of which ‘Someone else’ was the most recent (16th January),
A little about Andie Loui, who is Andréa Louise Horstad, a producer, musician, and composer working across pop, jazz, and film music, and who has, in recent years, produced music for other artists, as well as composed for film and television, including the Norwegian TV series POWERPLAY.
With Andie Loui, she steps forward with her own solo project, one in which she has given herself full artistic freedom to “explore the unpredictable and unfiltered.”
‘Another Bad Idea’ concerns the chaotic years of the twenties age group, about restlessness and desperation. Yep, I remember it (just). And it reflects an inner tug-of-war between the desire to hold on and the necessity of letting go.
Without pushing the Highasakite references too hard I was already getting vibes of ‘Silent Treatment’, that band’s first international album and it was rammed home to me by the gentle opening piano notes of ‘Someone else’ which channel those of Lover, where do you live’ perfectly and which later play the song out in a similar manner.
It’s a slow burner of a ballad in which the subject analyses the support she gave to her ex-beau and how that person will expect the same from the next object of desire. She ponders how well that next object will be able to respond to the task that she hopes, but is not certain of, she performed to the best of her own ability “through all of these years”.
That’s a brutal, concrete way of describing a song that will pull at your heart strings as it explodes dramatically on two occasions as she sings “…to someone else” into a cacophony of synthesiser led emotion, as if she is unburdening herself of pent up desire that she never allowed herself to show while she had the opportunity.
An illuminating introduction to an album that will be released on CrazyPop Records on February 6th, 2026.
(Continues after the Spotify link)
Find her on:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/andieloui
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/andie.loui/
