Lauren Edman’s seductively spare, self-produced solo debut It’s Always the Quiet One is a prismatic and intimate self-portrait. It’s a starkly vulnerable album that peeks under the veneer of shyness and examines the inner struggles of someone grappling with the societal and personal manifestations of being soft-spoken. Lauren is best known for her singing and songwriting on the track “Afterthoughts” from Sleepthief’s 2006 electronic album The Dawnseeker. At the time, she was a relatively unknown talent with a passion for trip-hop featuring ethereal but strong female vocalists. In the years that followed, she joined shoegaze band For Every Story Untold, with whom she performed and recorded for several years. The dual aesthetic trajectories of these disparate influences - the angelic electronic atmospherics of trip-hop and the earthiness of the shoegaze aesthetic - inform It’s Always the Quiet One. This along with Lauren's love for classical music, symphonic band and orchestral music, and catchy, soaring vocal melodies. The album begins with a minimalistic electronic sound that morphs to an organic and rustic sensibility in its second half. The title It’s Always the Quiet One frames the album’s thematic bend, and throughout the album Lauren examines her experiences and feelings while being thought of as the “quiet one.” From churning opener "Wasting," to the gently seething "Red Wings," to bittersweet ode to introversion "She's Not Here," her viscerally precise lyrical style articulates both the superficial impression of shy people being construed as naïve and the negative connotation of quiet people being thought of as holding back ulterior motives. Lauren has been making solo music under the name Northern Flicker since 2014.