Pop noir Londoners Luxembourg were regulars within these pages in our early days, so we were delighted when they made a brief reappearance with the Youth EP a few years back. Since then it’s been radio silence from the indie quintet, until out of the blue news reached us of a new single, due out today. We of course jumped at the chance to bring you a first look at its video and grabbed a few words with the band about the new release.
It’s fantastic to have Luxembourg back – what have you all been up to since the Youth EP?
Thank you! The Youth EP was released in May 2018, and we managed one gig later that year. ’45’, the song we’re putting out today, was actually written at around the same time, but we didn’t really do anything with it for quite a while. In March 2019, thanks to the legendary Keith TOTP, we went into the studio (this was pre-Covid, of course) and recorded the bass, drums and some of the guitars for ’45’. The rest of the parts were captured later on at singer David’s house or guitarist Rob’s place, and then we made a start on the mixing, aided by the brilliant Tim Benton.
In 2020, we discovered via Instagram Jonny Coddington’s Bottle Rocket Recording studio, and we arranged a couple of masked-up, socially distanced sessions there during one of the non-lockdown months to give the mixes a final spritz. Jonny did an amazing job. Finally, mastering was done, entirely remotely, by the marvellous Neil Pickles at Reveal Sound.
How has the experience of recording and releasing a new track during the lockdown been different from more usual times? Are there any pros to counteract the obvious cons?
We learned that there are some bits of the process you can do at home and other bits you perhaps can’t. So you have to grab any window of relaxation in the lockdown rules in order to get out to a commercial studio (and in the process help to support some small businesses). Anyway, we got there in the end… and, to be honest, a good chunk of the delay with this recording was caused by us being us, rather than by lockdown. We’d like to think we’ll be able to play a launch gig some time this year.
What can you tell us about the new track?
David was 44 when he wrote the lyrics, thinking he was future-proofing the song a little, but not guessing he’d be 47 when the song finally emerged. It’s about a lot of things, but undeniably one strand is truth, lies and informational chaos. Let’s just say it feels pertinent to be releasing this song during the last days of America’s 45th presidency.
Can we expect any more new music from Luxembourg soon?
’45’ is one song out of a little group of tracks that we’ve recorded, and the others will emerge one-by-one over the course of this year.
’45’ is available now on Bandcamp.
Interview by Paul Maps
facebook.com/luxembourgpopnoir / luxembourgpopnoir.bandcamp.com