lalalawaaaaa Releases Debut Album 'Side Effects of Being Alive'

Singer-songwriter lalalawaaaaa (LAWA) releases her debut album Side Effects of Being Alive digitally on all platforms on Friday, September 11, 2026. The title, she says, was chosen deliberately as an open question — she prefers names that provoke question marks rather than point toward a single, extreme reading like death. She says she's more curious what listeners themselves decide "the side effects of being alive" mean to them.

According to her announcement, the album's core theme is growth. She notes that since she began writing it, it has come to document different versions of herself across different stages — a process that includes loss, doubt, and coming to believe again.

The songs themselves grew out of moments she couldn't work through any other way. She says she often writes when something doesn't make sense to her — sometimes about love, sometimes about parting, sometimes about "the self you can never go back to." Since growing up, in her view, means losing something almost every day, her way of coping has been to leave those things behind in the songs.

Beyond its central thread of growth, the album also extends into self-identity, life, family, and becoming an adult. lalalawaaaaa says she hopes that by the album's end, listeners will feel as though they've completed a journey of growth alongside her.