‘Lucid Dreaming’ is the first album of Skyelar, which was recently released on April 22nd, 2022. On earlier singles she’s already had lots of positive responses from reviewers all over the world, like ‘Rolling Stone’ Brazil. She’s also been included in several playlists on Spotify and earlier singles like ‘Big Town’, ‘Moon Dogs’ and ‘I Shed My Skin’ have been played on Pinguin Radio’s main indie stream in The Netherlands.
For those who haven’t heard of Skyelar before, it is an independent music project from singer, songwriter and producer Jaklien Verham, based in Utrecht, The Netherlands. Jaklien spent many years performing with various bands as a singer throughout the Netherlands and in 2013, performed at the famous Paradiso in Amsterdam with her last band Rumours, as part of the Pinguin Radio annual music festival.
Began in 2017, Skyelar is the culmination of her musical career, combining soaring vocals with brooding, atmospheric compositions which draw you in to her cinematic and richly textured world. Working with session musicians from Europe and the US, her songs are written, arranged and produced from her home studio.
If you want to escape reality for a while, let yourself be carried away by Skyelar’s lucid dreams, from the ‘Fields of Hope’ to the ‘Road to nowhere’, the mysterious ‘Moon Dogs’ and the story ‘Wolf & Butterfly’. You will fully understand the title of the album. Developing her style, as a starting point for the album the songwriter used her favorite instruments such as piano, live drums, guitar, strings and certainly also synths with which she tries to create a certain tension in the music. This is probably also what makes her work somewhat atmospheric and cinematic. In addition, you’ll notice that on the one hand she likes to keep the arrangements small and acoustic, but on the other hand you’ll also hear her love for a banging rock guitar. The challenge was to combine these two elements into her music.