When you are still long enough, anything can become an object of contemplation.
Lucy Kruger has always had an affliction for reflection. Her lyrics, the musical make-up of her songs, they all lean towards some profound feeling of introspection, and it has always been the beating heart of Lucy Kruger & The Lost Boys.
On A Human Home, their sixth studio album, a capacity for contemplation is everywhere. Written and recorded during lockdown in Lucy’s room in Berlin, it’s an intimate collection of musical sketches exploring what it means to find and feel at home.
But more so, there’s a softness that protrudes from many of the songs, a softness perhaps missing on previous records.
Chords are sentimental, the guitars are unassuming and quiet, showcasing a simple but perfect restraint that is without a doubt the best thing about this stunningly cinematic record. Sad melody abounds, always susceptible to empathy, to subtlety, and through it all, the spirit of Lucy Kruger’s enigmatic artistry.
Her process was initially quite simple. She began gathering poems, sketches and different artistic expressions from friends and family, asking them to articulate their experiences of isolation. She then used these as starting points for songs.
However, what felt more interesting and true were the unscripted conversations Lucy was having at the time. She collected voice notes and texts from friends and allowed them to inform her writing. The making of the album was a deliberate attempt to embrace the influence of others on her creative and personal process, acknowledging how much of home lies not only in place but in the people we love.
“Dripping Trees” is an epic orchestral offering, punctuated by Kruger’s painful falsettos and a sombre guitar theme. Floating as though lost, the guitars assume a very specific quality on A Human Home. Swirling synths and sprawling string arrangements draw you into the intimacy of Kruger’s mind, her personal space, while murky electronic rhythms bring a trademark Lost Boys tenderness.
Speaking to us on “Rooms”, Kruger admitted that, “I think you can hear the searching in the record, and I like that. Tentative, at times, but explorative, and honest, I hope.”
“A Pocket Full Of Night” feels like a return to Kruger’s Tapes era, and maybe even further back too, to the salient guitar ambience of her debut Summer’s Not That Simple. Awash with nostalgia, this is classic Kruger.
A clumsily plucked guitar brings things to a close on “Golden Moon”. Returning to the home of who she is, Kruger surrenders herself to this unknown journey. Her musical intuition is led by a feeling-based exploration of sound. It’s naive at times, clumsy, vulnerable, but always fundamentally true in some way. Holding the hands of the familiar, she reckons with, and surrenders to change.