Lande Hekt – Lucky Now [CD]

Lande Hekt has quietly become one of the UK’s best underground songwriters. On her 2021 debut full-length Going To Hell and 2022’s House Without a View, she explored her queer identity, sobriety, and childhood trauma through the lens of heartfelt, conversational indie-pop, which led to spots opening for the likes of Alvvays, Throwing Muses, and The Beths. Her new album Lucky Now, written and recorded with producer Matthew Simms (Wire, It Hugs Back), reflects the most mature and confident version of Lande Hekt yet. Hekt’s musical touchstones — The Wedding Present, The Sundays, The Replacements — remain the same, but at the same time she’s delved deeper into other influences. Lucky Now is indebted to 1980s twee-pop and jangle-pop like The Pastels, Tallulah Gosh and The Bats, plus more modern iterations of the sound such as Autocamper and Jeanines, in its ecstatic, soaring melodies and gorgeous, tactile guitars. The sound is fitting for Hekt’s new lyrical outlook, where, though despair and anxiety rear their heads, she digs deep to find the gratitude. “I wanted to try and push for something slightly more positive, which I’m trying to do more of generally — just to not fall apart,” Hekt says. In keeping with that, opening track “Kitchen ii” is a love song about sharing simple, domestic moments with a partner, while “Rabbits” is a song about hope inspired by one summer solstice spent on Glastonbury Tor. Meanwhile, the slower, acoustic-based “Middle of the Night” is about “reeling from a realization of being properly happy for the first time in my life,” Hekt says. Hekt also returns to more politically-based songwriting, after largely avoiding politics in both life and music during a disillusioned period, on “Circular” and “A Million Broken Hearts”. During the process of making the album, Hekt also moved from Bristol back to her hometown of Exeter. She wrote Lucky Now’s closing track, “Coming Home”, about the experience of returning there after a long tour; smelling the familiar smells, spotting the familiar faces. In a lot of ways, Lucky Now is about return — return to joy, return to places and parts of the self once left behind. Who you once were can seem unreachable, but sometimes you can build a bridge.01. Kitchen II02. Lucky Now03. Rabbits04. Favourite Pair of Shoes05. Middle Of The Night06. Circular07. A Million Broken Hearts08. My Imaginary Friend09. The Sky10. Submarine11. Coming Home