The death of a loved one, the end of a romance, a dream that fades. ‘Old Feelings’ is three songs in the messy and opaque process of coming to terms with loss. Voice, piano and synths.
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You can make a song about the aftermath of an intense relationship. Simple chords, repeating softly, distorted echoes, thunderous cries, yelling and sirens. Crashing into simple chords repeating softly, again. It might be funny, the risk is there, and that’s okay. Serious things are risky. Melodrama, maximum sentimentality, a love so serious the whole world got involved. Listening to Sondheim on a Monday. ‘Old Feelings’ is a song about confounding cycles of memories and feelings. When the whole world, everyone, abandons you and your piano, to your memories of that one person.
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Scott Walker wrote ‘Such a Small Love’. His song seems less about a cyclical process, more about how jarring it feels for time to continue when time is full of gaps. Things that happen punctured by things that didn’t happen. The jarring experience of incommensurate things going on, together. Ritual outward mourning and small inner angers. Dissonant, lonely strings and euphoric, ensemble remembrance. Recording crows and a stick rattled along the railings. Setting every dial to ‘harsh’ and trying to make that beautiful. A drum that won’t stop beating.
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Trying to make what is heavy light, the light heavy. Stopping the song, starting differently. Recording under the covers, humming and breathing, and making that big. Listening to Gillian Rose interviewed on RTÉ. Finding someone else’s words in your train of thought. Music meant to feel like a bedroom when you have too much time to yourself. Tempo slips off. Going somewhere in the outro. ‘I Think I Know’ wanted to be a pop song originally.
Staying Out Records [SO0012] ⁝ Digital release (June, 2026)
“Old Feelings” composed by Lucy Duncan
“I Think I Know” composed by Lucy Duncan and NIAC
“Such a Small Love” composed by Scott Walker, arr. by Lucy Duncan and NIAC
All songs performed by Lucy Duncan
Spoken word in “I Think I Know” performed by Clementine Keith-Roach and Nicolas Deshayes
Recorded, produced and mixed by Lucy Duncan and NIAC
Mastered by Rupert Clervaux
Recorded at Goatham Studios
Cover image photograph by Matthew Arthur Willliams
Cover image design by Lucy and Misha
Thanks to Annie, Peter, Neil and Debs, Nic and David and Josh for allowing us to make studios out of your spaces.
Special thanks to Robbie Ellen, and thanks always to Staying Out Collective and everyone who supported the making of these songs
EP TRACK LIST:
coming soon
Seven Years Below the Flowers’ tells the story of the spellbound musician, drawn to the underworld by the promises and allure of the menacing and beautiful Fairy Queen. The song takes inspiration from the tales of Thomas the Rhymer and Tam Lin.
Released on Staying Out Records (April, 2024) ‘Seven Years Below the Flowers’ was written by Robbie Ellen (Personnel) originally for a computer game created by Holly White.
Luki’s take on ‘Seven Years’ uses synths (Misha Rivers), guitar (Harry Christelis), and subtle sonic atmospheres to create a ‘tour de force of pop-orientated strangeness’ (Richard Bull).
Performed by Luki
Written by Robbie Ellen
Arranger/ Producer by Lucy Duncan
Synths: Misha Rivers
Guitar: Harry Christelis
Mix: Lucy Duncan & Misha Rivers
Sound Engineer: Jack Patterson
Master: Alessandro La Barbera
Special Thanks to Josh Grigg & Robbie Ellen
SINGLE + MUSIC VIDEO
Staying Out Records [SO008] ⁝ Digital release (April, 2024)
In the music video, Luki plays the bewitched musician tempted below the flowers by the Fairy Queen, played by performance artist Fiontasia. In a fantasy world taking inspiration from folk horror and the iconic BBC Narnia adaptation,s Luki and the Fairy Queen, accompanied by a host of freaks and faeries, invite you to ‘a dream made all that’s real’
The music video was the collaborative creation of Staying Out Collective. The world below the flowers came to life in a kitchen in Surbiton with very little budget and reams of paper. Set designed by Lettice Drake (who also plays one of the bad-booshkas). Lyndon Harrison, Jess Wear and Robbie Ellen helped create and build the set as well as playing the fellow bad-booshkas and tree people. The Fairy Queen costume was designed and made by Fiontasia. All other costumes were mostly improvised the day before the shoot, guided by a united aesthetic, and years of dressing up together. Josh Grigg on lighting and lasers. John De Lima behind the camera. Fernanda Munoz-Newsome guiding movement and group choreography. Ed Webb-Ingall as the essential chief wrangler. Ines Maria Krämer on well being. Lucy Duncan (Luki) directing, playing the hapless human and editing the film into its final form.
“A tour de force of pop-orientated strangeness”
(Richard Bull)
LUKI’s new double A-side is a step into a new sound world. In contrast with the spare arrangements of voice and piano on Wisps, in this new work – developed in collaboration with producer Misha Rivers – her striking soprano voice and piano combine with an ensemble of live and sampled electronics and percussion
Written and performed by Lucy Duncan
Produced by Misha Rivers
Mastered by Samuel Joseph Smith [Green Door Studios]
Cover Art by Robbie Defacto
DOUBLE A SIDE
Sonido Polifonico [SP023] ⁝ 8″ Lathe cut vinyl and digital release (March, 2020)
“Duncan’s remarkable voice comes through more clearly than ever, extemporising in her upper range like an English Mary Margaret O’Hara, then knocking us out with her alto”
(Stewart Smith, The List)
Recorded at Glasgow’s infamous Green Door Studios, Wisps sees Luki exploring the far reaches of her voice, piano and narrative lyricism across eight songs.
Vocals, Piano and Synth: Lucy Duncan
Producer (tracks 2,3,6,7,8): Misha Rivers
Recorded, mixed and mastered at Green Door Studios
EP
GLARC [0009] ⁝ Cassette tape and digital release (Dec, 2018)
“Duncan’s witchy soprano, elegant piano and synth create a sense of time and place out of joint, as if Delia Derbyshire and Brian Eno had set up shop in an Edwardian parlour.”
(Stewart Smith, The List)
For all enquires please contact:
lukiduncan@gmail.com