LESS's voice emerges from this analog embrace with newfound authority. At twenty-four, she stands at the threshold between youth and full adulthood, and "Instead of Making Love (Say Hello)" captures that liminal moment with precision. The vocal performance balances intimacy with projection, vulnerability with strength. You hear someone who has learned to inhabit her own instrument, who understands that power doesn't require volume. The conversational quality of her delivery—praised repeatedly by those who've encountered the track—never tips into informality. This is controlled intimacy, artfully constructed spontaneity.
The song itself navigates the complicated geography between connection and its absence. That title performs considerable work: the substitution of greeting for lovemaking suggests distance, politeness where passion should reside, the slow cooling of something once vital. Yet LESS's treatment refuses easy cynicism. The irony is present but tempered by genuine feeling, by the recognition that failed intimacy still constitutes a form of human contact. Her lyric writing has matured beyond simple documentation of pain; she's learned to find complexity within disappointment, to locate the particular truths that make emotional experience resonate beyond the personal.
The early-2000s pop framework provides structure without constraint. LESS and her producers have absorbed that era's melodic clarity and production brightness while avoiding its occasionally synthetic sheen. The analog process ensures warmth where digital pop often courts sterility. Guitar lines weave through the arrangement with understated elegance, the low end sits steady without dominating, the mids carry the emotional freight. Reverb and delay appear judiciously, creating space without distance. Everything serves the song rather than announcing its own cleverness.
Context matters here. LESS has chosen to write and perform in English despite working within Italy's musical landscape—a calculated decision born from practical necessity. The domestic market offers limited opportunities for original English-language material, particularly work that refuses to conform to established commercial templates. This is the dilemma facing artists in smaller European markets: pursue the local language and accept geographical limitation, or adopt English and compete in a vastly more crowded international space. LESS has opted for the latter, understanding that her voice—both literal and artistic—deserves audience beyond national borders.
Her biography reads like a case study in resilience. The nomadic childhood across multiple Italian cities, the working-class roots (her parents both leather workers), the family upheaval following her grandmother's death, the adolescent realization of her sexuality and subsequent domestic friction—these experiences have been processed into art rather than worn as badges. Songs like "Why Do You Lie?" and "Hole" emerged from genuine struggle, but "Instead of Making Love (Say Hello)" suggests an artist moving beyond raw confession toward more sophisticated emotional investigation.
The pandemic years proved formative. Like countless musicians, LESS found herself isolated but productive, investing in home recording equipment and developing skills that would eventually lead her to Kapow Vintage Studio and its attendant community. The relationship with her producers clearly extends beyond professional transaction; there's familial trust evident in the creative risks the music takes, in its willingness to favour mood over marketplace considerations.
Live, LESS and her band reportedly push these songs into psychedelic rock territories, expanding arrangements and exploring the atmospheric potential within her vocal delivery. "Instead of Making Love (Say Hello)" hints at this capacity—the song's structure allows for expansion, for moments of instrumental exploration, for the voice to stretch and test its limits. But on record, discipline prevails. The single version understands its own parameters and works beautifully within them.
Whether LESS successfully crosses those borders she seeks remains uncertain. The international market proves unforgiving, particularly for artists without institutional backing or viral momentum. But "Instead of Making Love (Say Hello)" makes a compelling case for her viability. The craft is evident, the voice distinctive, the emotional intelligence genuine. Sometimes talent and persistence converge with opportunity. Sometimes they don't. Regardless, LESS has created work worth hearing, work that justifies her ambition. That counts for considerably more than mere potential.