UnRetirement & Seven Up
Hello masses
I’m now doing a blog / newsletter because in the nearly three years since I’ve put out music, social media has fallen down the toilet and I’ve reduced my time on certain platforms so this is a place for the handful of people who actually want to hear from me to get more personalised updates. (You need a diary Luke)
For anyone who knows me more than a decade they can probably remember the blog I had for my photography in secondary school and early college where I overshared too much and uploaded photos of myself. This is kind of like that but more jaded.
So where have you been Luke?
Well, in 2022, after releasing my debut album (twice) and putting out many singles, videos, grovelling press emails, doing two feature length projects and then editing a long ass documentary about myself for some reason, alongside a 9-5, in a hospital, throughout a pandemic , I was understandably, quite burnt out.
So, I decided I’d take a year off and see what I actually wanted to do with myself, and I arsed around with lots of stuff, I got myself a little studio space briefly, I drew up plans for various photo projects that I never fulfilled, I wrote some scripts, I nearly rereleased new versions of old songs, I made a half arsed attempt to get money off the arts council (what is a PureGrand?) but I kept getting distracted or discouraged. Then, in 2023 my mental health got really really bad and I spent hours bet into letterboxed on my sofa before our landlords decided to move their family in.
All the while I’ve been writing and producing songs for PureGrand (I know I said I’d retired but then my housemate walked in on me making demos on Logic like a wife who discovered her husbands dirty mags)
I decided that I wanted to put zero pressure on myself to put songs out, trying to just make stuff for fun (I’m now a 29 year old indie pop puff so under no illusions about perusing this for anything more than pleasure) and I’ve finally reached the point where I want to share what I’ve been working on.
SO on June 6th I’m putting out my new single SEVEN UP. I’ll prob go into more detail about the song in another post but basically the song is inspired by the sounds of early 80s dance music coming out of underground gay clubs (Luke can you come up with something else??!) it pays homage to dance pioneers like Patrick Cowley and Gorgio Moroder while structurally turning the genre on its head. Lyrically indulging in the ecstacy of hook up and party culture but also taking a step back to question the loneliness often felt in its aftermath. (Yes this wordy sentence is copied and pasted from my press release)
I’m really excited and relieved to finally put Seven Up out, I wrote it THREE years ago in Summer 2022 on the plane back from Italy while listening to lots of Italo Disco, if anyone remembers my 2019 EP Painkiller, it’s a bit like I - in the words of very online homos “reheated my own nachos”.
Aside from my pop endeavours I’ve also finally managed to make something visual separate from it alongside my friend and fellow Diva - Denny Redmond, but more on that very soon!
Pre-save for the single is below with album artwork by me, as per usual.
Also please don’t forget to subscribe if you have gotten this far for more updates.
Tannnx
Luke