Album out now: Lara Somogyi "a [time] patterned"

Lara Somogyi today releases her second album, a [time] patterned, out now via Mercury KX. Rooted in contemporary classical while reaching far beyond it, a [time] patterned is an intensely human body of work that reframes time not as a linear experience, but as an emotional landscape.

A Juno nominee and artist known for pushing the boundaries of her instrument, Somogyi approaches the harp as a vehicle for exploration rather than tradition. With classical roots at the Royal Academy of Music, where she was awarded an honorary Associate (ARAM) for her innovations in the field, her work moves fluidly across sonic worlds. Her collaborations include Bonobo, Ólafur Arnalds, the London Symphony Orchestra and Bat For Lashes, alongside credits on Spike Lee’s Oscar-nominated Da 5 Bloods, Hans Zimmer’s Blue Planet II featuring Radiohead, and Ari Aster’s Eddington for A24.

Where her debut album established a distinct voice through the harp alone, a [time] patterned begins there and moves outward. Written with producer Cyrus Reynolds, the album was shaped through tape loops, delay and repetition to explore how patterns emerge, dissolve and reform. The process became both technical and deeply personal following the loss of Somogyi’s father, becoming an exploration of how time is felt rather than measured: joy is rhythmic, grief has structure, and healing forms patterns.

Across eleven compositions, a [time] patterned unfolds as a series of sonic environments, described by Somogyi as “rooms” the listener can move through. Field recordings - including birdsong from her birthplace of Kauai - sit alongside string arrangements and textural experimentation, with contributions from Rob Moose (Bon Iver, Sufjan Stevens) and Clarice Jensen (Max Richter).

The album includes “sojourn,” an expansive piece for harp, strings and electronics that opens with an extended pedal technique, blurring tonality and allowing texture to lead. As a melodic thread gradually emerges, granular processing fractures and reconfigures time around it, while strings provide a subtle architecture beneath.

“sojourn opens in the in-between; in that first step forward, tracing a quiet shift toward something open and free,” says Somogyi. “It’s not a beginning, even though it was the first piece I wrote for the record. To me, it feels like an opening to the next chapter.”

Influenced in part by architectural theory and the idea of pattern as structure, each piece on a [time] patterned becomes less a narrative than a form: joy, grief and growth expressed as evolving systems of sound. The harp remains central, but is continually reimagined - stretched through pedals, prepared with objects and layered into shifting, immersive forms.

a [time] patterned is ultimately a work of curiosity and openness: an exploration of how experience leaves its imprint, and how music can hold and reshape it. With the album now released in full, Somogyi invites listeners to enter its world and inhabit time on their own terms.

Order a [time] patterned

a [time] patterned Tracklist

1. fingerprints

2. sojourn

3. mirabel

4 open fields

5 elsewhere

6. overture of

7. highway nocturne 40 ft. Clarice Jensen

8. sitting circle ft. Rob Moose

9. intimacy gradient

10. holding suite

11. alloy IX

Lara Somogyi Live:

• Sat. Aug. 29 – Los Angeles, CA @ Live at Glass Hill
• Wed. Sept. 9 – Chicago, IL @ Constellation
• Fri. Sept. 11 – Brooklyn, NY @ National Sawdust