On Strange Love, Lawrence J-P Puts the Cello Front and Centre
An Award-Winning Short Film Score That Stands on Its Own as Indie Pop
Most pop songs do not hand the melody to a cello. That is the first thing you hear on Strange Love. Lawrence J-P released the single on 22 May 2026. It serves as the official theme for the award-winning short film of the same name. Here the cello sits pulled out of the orchestra and squarely at the front of a pop record. For an independent artist from York, it is a confident way to introduce a sound that refuses to sit in one box.
You can listen to our full playlist which contains the artist’s music, and know more about the artist’s work by scrolling down the page.
Strange Love Hands the Lead to a Cello, Not a Synth or Guitar
The cello is the throughline of everything Lawrence J-P does. On Strange Love it carries the work that a vocal hook or a guitar riff would handle on a more conventional pop single. He writes with the instrument at the centre, not as a string pad tucked under the mix. Its phrasing shapes the melody and the mood at once. In turn, that one choice gives the track its genre-blending character. The pop structure is familiar, but the voice leading it is not.
It also lets the song sit in two places at once. There is enough hook here for a mainstream pop playlist. There is enough orchestral weight for the piece to read as a film score when it needs to. Lawrence J-P has been open about wanting the cello treated as a lead instrument in modern pop, not a classical accessory. Strange Love is the clearest case he has made for that idea. It is indie pop that wears its strings proudly instead of hiding them.
Written as the Official Theme for Benjamin Jesse’s Award-Winning Short Film
Strange Love did not begin life as a standalone single. It was written as the official theme for the short film Strange Love, a Benjamin Jesse film. That origin shapes how the track is built. It follows the stranger corners of love rather than settling for a tidy hook. It carries the narrative pull you expect from music made to support a story.
What makes the release worth attention is that it works away from the screen too. Stripped of the visuals, the song holds up as a pop record with its own arc. That is a harder balance to strike than it sounds. A theme that only makes sense beside its film rarely travels far. Still, this one was built to do both jobs. The cello is the thread that ties the film side to the pop side. For publishers, that dual life is the real story.
Where Strange Love Balances Pop Accessibility and Film-Score Depth
If you lean toward pop that borrows from the orchestra, Strange Love lands in familiar but underpopulated territory. Listeners who follow Lana Del Rey for her film-score instincts will recognise the impulse to let mood lead. Her records feel scored rather than simply produced. Fans of Sufjan Stevens know the sound of acoustic and orchestral instruments pushed to the front of indie songwriting. Here a cello gets that same prominence. There is a touch of the dramatic, string-swept build that Florence and the Machine fans enjoy. It is scaled down to the intimacy of one voice and one instrument.
The target listener is the indie and mainstream pop fan who notices instrumentation. Add the film crowd who followed the short and want to keep the song close. Pop curiosity on one side, an appetite for award-winning independent film on the other. That overlap is exactly who Lawrence J-P is writing for.
Lawrence J-P Builds a Case for the Cello in Modern Pop
Lawrence J-P is an independent artist from York. He has built his identity around one idea: the cello does not have to stay in the orchestra. Across his work he writes pop compositions with the instrument at their core. Strange Love makes the point most plainly. “My goal with ‘Strange Love’ was to capture the nuanced emotions of the film while creating something that resonates as a standalone pop track,” he said of the single. “It’s been incredible to see how listeners have connected with the song’s narrative and its unique instrumental textures since its release.”
That reaction is the part worth watching. A song written for one film could easily have stayed tied to it. Even so, the early response suggests the track stands on its own. For an independent artist trying to widen an audience, that is the harder and more useful outcome.
The IndieRock.News curator team: “What sold us was the restraint. Lawrence J-P could have padded the track with a full string section. Instead he trusts a single cello to carry the song, and that confidence is what makes Strange Love stay with you.”
You can dig into Lawrence J-P’s wider catalogue on Apple Music. Keep up with what he releases next on Instagram, TikTok, and his YouTube channel. His official site has the rest.
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